TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 


BY 

BRANDER  MATTHEWS 


NEW     YORK 
HARPER    &    BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 

1896 


BOOKS  BY   BRAXDER   MATTHEWS. 


THE  THEATRES  OF  PARIS. 

FRENCH  DRAMATISTS  OF  THE  19TH  CENTURY. 

THE  LAST  MEETING,  a  Story. 

A  SECRET  OF  THE  SEA,  and  Other  Stones. 

PEN  AND  INK:    Essays  on  Subjects  of  More  or  Less  Importance. 

A  FAMILY  TREE,  and  Other  Stories. 

WITH  MY  FRIENDS:    Tales  Told  in  Partnership. 

A  TALE  OF  TWENTY-FIVE  HOURS. 

TOM  PAULDING,  a  Story  for  Boys. 

IN  THE  VESTIBULE  LIMITED,  a  Story. 

AMERICANISMS  AND  BRITICISMS,  with  Other  Essays  on  Other  Isms. 

THE  STORY  OF  A  STORY,  and  Other  Stories. 

THE  DECISION  OF  THE  COURT,  a  Comedy. 

STUDIES  OF  THE  STAGE. 

THIS  PICTURE  AND  THAT,  a  Comedy. 

VIGNETTES  OF  MANHATTAN. 

THE  ROYAL  MARINE,  an  Idyl  of  NarraKansett. 

BOOK-BINDINGS,  Old  and  New;    Notes  of  a  Book-Lover. 

HIS  FATHER'S  SON,  a  Novel  of  New  York. 

^INTRODUCTION   TO  THE   STUDY  OF  AMERICAN    LITEKA- 

T ALES.  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT. 

ASPECTS  JX  FICTION.,  ajfd  plJetJVjntuJes  in  Criticism.     (In  Press.) 


Copyright,  1896,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 


All  rights  reterved. 


TO 
THE   MEMORY   OF   MY  FRIEND 

II.  C.  BUNXER 


271761 


CONTENTS 


A  PIUMEU  OF  IMAGINARY  GEOGRAPHY 3 

THE  KINETOSCOPE  OF  TIME 27 

THE  DREAM-GOWN  OF  THE  JAPANESE  AMBASSADOR    57 

THE  RIVAL  GHOSTS 93 

SIXTEEN  YEARS  WITHOUT  A  BIRTHDAY     ....  131 

THE  TWINKLING  OF  AN  EYE 143 

A  CONFIDENTIAL  POSTSCRIPT 207 


A    PEIMEK    OF    IMAGINARY 

GEOGRAPHY 


A    PRIMER    OF    IMAGINARY 
GEOGRAPHY 


HIP  ahoy!" 

There  was  an  answer  from  our 
bark — for  such  it  seemed  to  me 
by  this  time  —  but  I  could  not 
make  out  the  words. 

"  "Where  do  you  hail  from  ?"  was  the  next 
question. 

I  strained  my  ears  to  catch  the  response, 
being  naturally  anxious  to  know  whence  I  had 
come. 

"  From  the  City  of  Destruction !"  was  what 
I  thought  I  heard ;  and  I  confess  that  it  sur 
prised  me  not  a  little. 

"  Where  are  you  bound  ?"  was  asked  in  turn. 
Again  I  listened  with  intensest  interest,  and 
again  did  the  reply  astonish  me  greatly. 


TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

"  Ultima  Thule !"  was  the  answer  from  our 
boat,  and  the  voice  of  the  man  who  answered 
was  deep  and  melancholy. 

Then  I  knew  that  I  had  set  out  strange 
countries  for  to  see,  and  that  I  was  all  un 
equipped  for  so  distant  a  voyage.  Thule  I 
knew,  or  at  least  I  had  heard  of  the  king  who 
reigned  there  once  and  who  cast  his  goblet 
into  the  sea.  But  Ultima  Thule  !  was  not  that 
beyond  the  uttermost  borders  of  the  earth  ? 

"  Any  passengers  ?"  was  the  next  query,  and 
I  noted  that  the  voice  came  now  from  the 
left  and  was  almost  abreast  of  us. 

"  One  only,"  responded  the  captain  of  our 
boat. 

"  Where  bound  ?"  was  the  final  inquiry. 

"  To  the  Fortunate  Islands !"  was  the  an 
swer;  and  as  I  heard  this  my  spirits  rose 
again,  and  I  was  glad,  as  what  man  would  not 
be  who  was  on  his  way  to  the  paradise  where 
the  crimson-flowered  meadows  are  full  of  the 
shade  of  frankincense-trees  and  of  fruits  of 
gold? 

Then  the  boat  bounded  forward  again,  and 
I  heard  the  wash  of  the  waves. 

All  this  time  it  seemed  as  though  I  were  in 


A   PRIMER   OF   IMAGINARY   GEOGRAPHY  5 

darkness;  but  now  I  began  dimly  to  discern 
the  objects  about  me.  I  found  that  I  was  ly 
ing  on  a  settee  in  a  state-room  at  the  stern  of 
the  vessel.  Through  the  small  round  window 
over  my  head  the  first  rays  of  the  rising  sun 
-darted  and  soon  lighted  the  little  cabin. 

As  I  looked  about  me  with  curiosity,  won 
dering  how  I  came  to  be  a  passenger  on  so  un 
expected  a  vo}Tage,  I  saw  the  figure  of  a  man 
framed  in  the  doorway  at  the  foot  of  the 
stairs  leading  to  the  deck  above. 

How  it  was  I  do  not  know,  but  I  made  sure 
at  once  that  he  was  the  captain  of  the  ship, 
the  man  whose  voice  I  had  heard  answering 
the  hail. 

He  was  tall  and  dark,  with  a  scant  beard 
and  a  fiery  and  piercing  gaze,  which  penetrat 
ed  me  as  I  faced  him.  Yet  the  expression  of 
his  countenance  was  not  unfriendly ;  nor  could 
any  man  lay  eyes  upon  him  without  a  move 
ment  of  pity  for  the  sadness  written  on  his 
visage. 

I  rose  to  my  feet  as  he  came  forward. 

"  Well,"  he  said,  holding  out  his  hand,  "  and 
how  are  you  after  your  nap  ?" 

He  spoke  our  language  with  ease  and  yet 


6  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

with,  a  foreign  accent.  Perhaps  it  was  this 
which  betrayed  him  to  me. 

"Are  you  not  Captain  Vanderdecken ?"  I 
asked  as  I  took  his  hand  heartily. 

u  So  you  know  me?"  he  returned,  with  a 
mournful  little  laugh,  as  he  motioned  to  me  to 
sit  down  again. 

Thus  the  ice  was  broken,  and  he  took  his 
seat  by  my  side,  and  we  were  soon  deep  in 
talk. 

"When  he  learned  that  I  was  a  loyal  New- 
Yorker,  his  cordiality  increased. 

"  i  have  relatives  in  New  Amsterdam/1  he 
cried ;  "  at  least  I  had  once.  Diedrich  Knick 
erbocker  was  my  first  cousin.  And  do  you 
know  Rip  Van  Winkle  ?" 

Although  I  could  not  claim  any  close  friend 
ship  with  this  gentleman,  I  boasted  myself 
fully  acquainted  with  his  history. 

"Yes,  yes,"  said  Captain  Vanderdecken,  "I 
suppose  he  was  before  your  time.  Most  peo 
ple  are  so  short-lived  nowadays ;  it's  only  with 
that  Wandering  Jew  now  that  I  ever  have  a 
chat  over  old  times.  Well,  well,  but  you  have 
heard  of  Rip  ?  Were  you  ever  told  that  I  was 
on  a  visit  to  Hendrik  Hudson  the  night  Rip 


A    PRIMER    OF    IMAGINARY    GEOGRAPHY  7 

went  up  the  mountain  and  took  a  drop  too 
much  ?" 

I  had  to  confess  that  here  was  a  fact  I  had 
not  before  known. 

UI  ran  up  the  river,"  said  the  Hollander, 
"  to  have  a  game  of  bowls  with  the  English 
man  and  his  crew,  nearly  all  of  them  coun 
trymen  of  mine;  and,  by-the-way,  Hudson 
always  insists  that  it  was  I  who  brought  the 
storm  with  me  that  gave  poor  Rip  Yan  Win 
kle  the  rheumatism  as  he  slept  off  his  intox 
ication  on  the  hillside  under  the  pines.  He 
was  a  good  fellow,  Eip,  and  a  very  good  judge 
of  schnapps,  too." 

Seeing  him  smile  with  the  pleasant  mem 
ories  of  past  companionship,  I  marvelled  when 
the  sorrowful  expression  swiftly  covered  his 
face  again  as  a  mask. 

"  But  why  talk  of  those  who  are  dead  and 
gone  and  are  happy?"  he  asked  in  his  deep 
voice.  "  Soon  there  will  be  no  one  left,  per 
haps,  but  Ahasuerus  and  Yanderdecken — the 
Wandering  Jew  and  the  Flying  Dutch 
man." 

He  sighed  bitterly,  and  then  he  gave  a 
short,  hard  laugh. 


8         TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

"  There's  no  use  talking  about  these  things, 
is  there  ?"  he  cried.  "  In  an  hour  or  two,  if 
the  wind  holds,  I  can  show  you  the  house  in 
which  Ahasuerus  has  established  his  museum, 
the  only  solace  of  his  lonely  life.  He  has 
the  most  extraordinary  gathering  of  curiosities 
the  world  has  ever  seen — truly  a  virtuoso's  col 
lection.  An  American  reporter  came  on  a 
voyage  with  me  fifty  or  sixty  years  ago,  and 
I  took  him  over  there.  His  name  was  Haw 
thorne.  He  interviewed  the  Jew,  and  wrote 
up  the  collection  in  the  American  papers,  so 
I've  been  told." 

"  I  remember  reading  the  interview,"  I  said, 
"  and  it  was  indeed  a  most  remarkable  collec 
tion." 

"  It's  all  the  more  curious  now  for  the  odds 
and  ends  I've  been  able  to  pick  up  here  and 
there  for  my  old  friend,"  Vanderdecken  de 
clared  ;  "  I  got  him  the  horn  of  Hernani,  the 
harpoon  with  which  Long  Tom  Coffin  pinned 
the  British  officer  to  the  mast,  the  long  rifle 
of  Natty  Bumppo,  the  letter  A  in  scarlet  cloth 
embroidered  in  gold  by  Hester  Prynne,  the 
banner  with  the  strange  device  *  Excelsior,'  the 
gold  bug  which  was  once  used  as  a  plummet, 


A    PKIMER    OF    IMAGINARY    GEOGRAPHY 

Maud  Muller's  rake,  and  the  jack-knives  of 
Hosea  Biglow  and  Sam  Lawson." 

"  You  must  have  seen  extraordinary  things 
yourself,"  I  ventured  to  suggest. 

"  No  man  has  seen  stranger,"  he  answered, 
promptly.  "  No  man  has  ever  been  witness 
to  more  marvellous  deeds  than  I — not  even 
Ahasuerus,  I  verily  believe,  for  he  has  only 
the  land,  and  I  have  the  boundless  sea.  I  sur 
vey  mankind  from  China  to  Peru.  I  have 
heard  the  horns  of  elfland  blowing,  and  I 
could  tell  you  the  song  the  sirens  sang.  I 
have  dropped  anchor  at  the  No  Man's  Land, 
and  off  Lyonesse,  and  in  Xanadu,  where  Alph 
the  sacred  river  ran.  I  have  sailed  from  the 
still-vexed  Bermoothes  to  the  New  Atlantis, 
of  which  there  is  no  mention  even  until  the 
year  1629." 

"  In  which  year  there  was  published  an  ac 
count  of  it  written  in  the  Latin  tongue,  but  by 
an  Englishman,"  I  said,  desirous  to  reveal  my 
acquirements. 

"  I  have  seen  every  strange  coast,"  con 
tinued  the  Flying  Dutchman.  "  The  Island  of 
Bells  and  Kobinson  Crusoe's  Island  and  the 
Kingdoms  of  Brobdingnag  and  Lilliput.  But  it 


10  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

is  not  for  me  to  vaunt  myself  for  my  voyages. 
And  of  a  truth  there  are  men  I  should  like  to 
have  met  and  talked  with  whom  I  have  yet 
failed  to  see.  Especially  is  there  one  Ulysses, 
a  sailor-man  of  antiquity  who  called  himself 
Outis,  whence  I  have  sometimes  suspected 
that  he  came  from  the  town  of  "Weissnicht- 
wo." 

Just  to  discover  what  Vanderdecken  would 
say,  I  inquired  innocently  whether  this  was 
the  same  person  as  one  Captain  Nemo  of 
whose  submarine  exploits  I  had  read. 

"  Captain  Nemo  2"  the  Flying  Dutchman 
repeated  scornfully.  "I  never  heard  of  him. 
Are  you  sure  there  is  such  a  fellow  ?" 

I  tried  to  turn  the  conversation  by  asking 
if  he  had  ever  met  another  ancient  mariner 
named  Charon. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  was  his  answer.  "  Charon  keeps 
the  ferry  across  the  Styx  to  the  Elysian  Fields, 
past  the  sunless  marsh  of  Acheron.  Yes — I've 
met  him  more  than  once.  I  met  him  only 
last  month,  and  he  was  very  proud  of  his  new 
electric  launch  with  its  storage  battery." 

When  I  expressed  my  surprise  at  this,  he 
asked  me  if  I  did  not  know  that  the  under- 


A    PRIMER    OF    IMAGINARY    GEOGRAPHY  11 

world  was  now  lighted  by  electricity,  and  that 
Pluto  had  put  in  all  the  modern  improve 
ments.  Before  I  had  time  to  answer,  he 
rose  from  his  seat  and  slapped  me  on  the 
shoulder. 

"  Come  up  with  me ! — if  you  want  to  behold 
things  for  yourself,"  he  cried.  "  So  far,  it 
seems  to  me,  you  have  never  seen  the  sights !" 

I  followed  him  on  deck.  The  sun  was  now 
two  hours  high,  and  I  could  just  make  out  a 
faint  line  of  land  on  the  horizon. 

"  That  rugged  coast  is  Bohemia,  which  is 
really  a  desert  country  by  the  sea,  although  ig 
norant  and  bigoted  pedants  have  dared  to  deny 
it,"  and  the  scorn  of  my  companion  as  he  said 
this  was  wonderful  to  see.  "  Its  borders  touch 
Alsatia,  of  which  the  chief  town  is  a  city  of  ref 
uge.  'Not  far  inland,  but  a  little  to  the  south, 
is  the  beautiful  Forest  of  Arden,  where  men 
and  maids  dwell  together  in  amity,  and  where 
clowns  wander,  making  love  to  shepherdesses. 
Some  of  these  same  pestilent  pedants  have  pre 
tended  to  believe  that  this  forest  of  Arden  was 
situated  in  France,  which  is  absurd,  as  there 
are  no  serpents  and  no  lions  in  France,  while 
we  have  the  best  of  evidence  as  to  the  exist- 


12  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

ence  of  both  in  Arden — you  know  that,  don't 
you?" 

I  admitted  that  a  green  and  gilded  snake 
and  a  lioness  with  udders  all  drawn  dry  were 
known  to  have  been  seen  there  both  on  the 
same  day.  I  ventured  to  suggest  further  that 
possibly  this  Forest  of  Arden  was  the  Wander 
ing  Wood  where  Una  met  her  lion. 

"  Of  course,"  was  the  curt  response ;  "  every 
body  knows  that  Arden  is  a  most  beautiful  re 
gion;  even  the  toads  there  have  precious  jewels 
in  their  heads.  And  if  you  range  the  forest 
freely  you  may  chance  to  find  also  the  White 
Doe  of  Kylstone  and  the  goat  with  the  gilded 
horns  that  told  fortunes  in  Paris  long  ago  by 
tapping  with  his  hoof  on  a  tambourine." 

"These,  then,  are  the  Happy  Hunting- 
Grounds  ?"  I  suggested  with  a  light  laugh. 

"  Who  would  chase  a  tame  goat  ?"  he  retort 
ed  with  ill-concealed  contempt  for  my  ill-ad 
vised  remark. 

I  thought  it  best  to  keep  silence ;  and  after 
a  minute  or  two  he  resumed  the  conversation, 
like  one  who  is  glad  of  a  good  listener. 

"In  the  outskirts  of  the  Forest  of  Arden," 
he  began  again,  "  stands  the  Abbey  of  Thele- 


A    PRIMER   OF    IMAGINARY    GEOGRAPHY  13 

ma  —  the  only  abbey  which  is  bounded  by  no 
wall  and  in  which  there  is  no  clock  at  all  nor 
any  dial.  And  what  need  is  there  of  knowing 
the  time  when  one  has  for  companions  only 
comely  and  well  -  conditioned  men  and  fair 
women  of  sweet  disposition  ?  And  the  motto 
of  the  Abbey  of  Thelema  is  Fais  ce  que  vou- 
dra  —  Do  what  you  will;  and  many  of  those 
who  dwell  in  the  Forest  of  Arden  will  tell  you 
that  they  have  taken  this  also  for  their  device, 
and  that  if  you  live  under  the  greenwood  tree 
you  may  spend  your  life — as  you  like  it." 

I  acknowledged  that  this  claim  was  proba 
bly  well  founded,  since  I  recalled  a  song  of  the 
foresters  in  which  they  declared  themselves 
without  an  enemy  but  winter  and  rough 
weather. 

"  Yes,"  he  went  on, "  they  are  fond  of  sing 
ing  in  the  Forest  of  Arden,  and  they  sing  good 
songs.  And  so  they  do  in  the  fair  land  be 
yond  where  I  have  never  been,  and  which  I  can 
never  hope  to  go  to  see  for  myself,  if  all  that 
they  report  be  true — and  yet  what  would  I  not 
give  to  see  it  and  to  die  there." 

And  as  he  said  this  sadty,  his  voice  sank  into 
a  sigh. 


14        TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

"  And  where  does  the  road  through  the  for 
est  lead,  that  you  so  much  wish  to  set  forth 
upon  it  ?"  I  asked. 

"  That's  the  way  to  Arcady,"  he  said — "  to 
Arcady  where  all  the  leaves  are  merry.  I  may 
not  go  there,  though  I  long  for  it.  Those  who 
attain  to  its  borders  never  come  back  again — 
and  why  should  they  leave  it  ?  Yet  there  are 
tales  told,  and  I  have  heard  that  this  Arcady 
is  the  veritable  El  Dorado,  and  that  in  it  is  the 
true  Fountain  of  Youth,  gushing  forth  unfail 
ingly  for  the  refreshment  of  all  who  may  reach 
it.  But  no  one  may  find  the  entrance  who  can 
not  see  it  by  the  light  that  never  was  on  land 
or  sea." 

"It  must  be  a  favored  region,"  I  re 
marked. 

"  Of  a  truth  it  is,"  he  answered  ;  "  and  on 
the  way  there  is  the  orchard  where  grow  the 
golden  apples  of  Hesperides,  and  the  dragon 
is  dead  now  that  used  to  guard  them,  and  so 
any  one  may  help  himself  to  the  beautiful 
fruit.  And  by  the  side  of  the  orchard  flows 
the  river  Lethe,  of  which  it  is  not  well  for  man 
to  drink,  though  many  men  would  taste  it 
gladly."  And  again  he  sighed. 


A    PRIMER    OF    IMAGINARY    GEOGRAPHY  15 

I  knew  not  what  to  say,  and  so  waited  for 
him  to  speak  once  more. 

"  That  promontory  there  on  the  weather 
bow,"  he  began  again  after  a  few  moments' 
silence,  "that  is  Barataria,  which  was  long 
supposed  to  be  an  island  by  its  former  gover 
nor,  Don  Sancho  Panza,  but  which  is  now 
known  by  all  to  be  connected  with  the  main 
land.  Pleasant  pastures  slope  down  to  the 
water,  and  if  we  wrere  closer  in  shore  you 
might  chance  to  see  Rozinante,  the  famous 
charger  of  Don  Quixote  de  la  Mancha,  grazing 
amicably  with  the  horse  that  brought  the 
good  news  from  Ghent  to  Aix." 

"  I  wish  I  could  see  them !"  I  cried,  enthusi 
astically  ;  "  but  there  is  another  horse  I  would 
rather  behold  than  any  —  the  winged  steed 
Pegasus." 

Before  responding,  my  guide  raised  his  hand 
and  shaded  his  eyes  and  scanned  the  horizon. 

"No,"  he  said  at  last.  "I  cannot  descry 
any  this  afternoon.  Sometimes  in  these  lati 
tudes  I  have  seen  a  dozen  hippogriffs  circling 
about  the  ship,  and  I  should  like  to  have 
shown  them  to  you.  Perhaps  they  are  all  in 
the  paddock  at  the  stock-farm,  where  Apollo 


16  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

is  now  mating  them  with  night -mares  in  the 
hope  of  improving  the  breed  from  which  he 
selects  the  coursers  that  draw  the  chariot  of 
the  sun.  They  say  that  the  experiment  would 
have  more  chance  of  success  if  it  were  easier 
to  find  the  night-mares'  nests." 

« It  was  not  a  hippogriff  I  desired  to  see 
especially,"  I  returned  when  he  paused,  "  al 
though  that  would  be  interesting,  no  doubt. 
It  was  the  renowned  Pegasus  himself." 

"Pegasus  is  much  like  the  other  hippo- 
griff  s,"°he  retorted,  «  although  perhaps  he  has 
a  little  better  record  than  any  of  them.  But 
they  say  he  has  not  won  a  single  aerial  handi 
cap  since  that  American  professor  of  yours  har 
nessed  him  to  a  one-hoss'shay.  That  seemed 
to  break  his  spirit,  somehow  ;  and  I'm  told  he 
would  shy  now  even  at  a  broomstick  train." 

"Even* if  he  is  out  of  condition,"  I  declared, 
"Pegasus  is  still  the  steed  I  desire  to  see 

above  all." 

"  I  haven't  set  eyes  on  him  for  weeks,"  was 
the  answer,  "  so  he  is  probably  moulting ;  this 
is  the  time  of  year.  He  has  a  roomy  boxstall 
in  the  new  Augean  stable  at  the  foot  of  Mount 
Parnassus.  You  know  they  have  turned  the 


A    PRIMER    OF   IMAGINARY    GEOGRAPHY          17 

spring  of  Castaly  so  that  it  flows  through  the 
stable -yard  now,  and  so  it  is  easy  enough  to 
keep  the  place  clean." 

"  If  I  may  not  see  Pegasus,"  I  asked,  "  is 
there  any  chance  of  my  being  taken  to  the 
Castle  of  the  Sleeping  Beauty  3" 

"  I  have  never  seen  it  myself,"  he  replied, 
"  and  so  I  cannot  show  it  to  you.  Rarely  in 
deed  may  I  leave  the  deck  of  my  ship  to  go 
ashore ;  and  this  castle  that  you  ask  about  is 
very  far  inland.  I  am  told  that  it  is  in  a 
country  which  the  French  travellers  call  La 
Scribie,  a  curious  land,  wherein  the  scene  is 
laid  of  many  a  play,  because  its  laws  and  its 
customs  are  exactly  what  every  playwright 
has  need  of;  but  no  poet  has  visited  it  for 
many  years.  Yet  the  Grand  Duchess  of  Ger- 
olstein,  whose  domains  lie  partly  within  the 
boundaries  of  Scribia,  is  still  a  subscriber  to 
the  Gazette  de  Ilollande — the  only  newspaper 
I  take  himself,  by  the  way." 

This  last  remark  of  the  Captain's  explained 
how  it  was  that  he  had  been  able  to  keep  up 
with  the  news  of  the  day,  despite  his  constant 
wanderings  over  the  waste  of  waters ;  and 
what  more  natural  in  fact  than  that  the  Flying 


18  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

Dutchman  should  be  a  regular  reader  of  the 
Holland  Gazette? 

Vanderdecken  went  forward  into  the  prow 
of  the  vessel,  calling  to  me  to  follow. 

"  Do  you  see  those  peaks  afar  in  the  dis 
tance  ?"  he  asked,  pointing  over  the  starboard 
bow. 

I  could  just  make  out  a  saw-like  outline  in 
the  direction  indicated. 

"  Those  are  the  Delectable  Mountains,"  he 
informed  me;  "  and  down  in  a  hollow  between 
the  two  ranges  is  the  Happy  Yalley." 

" Where  Easselas  lived?" 

"Yes,"  he  replied,  "and  beyond  the  Delec 
table  Mountains,  on  the  far  slope,  lies  Prester 
John's  Kingdom,  and  there  dwell  anthropoph 
agi,  and  men  whose  heads  do  grow  beneath 
their  shoulders.  At  least,  so  they  say.  For  my 
part,  I  have  never  seen  any  such.  And  I  have 
now  no  desire  to  go  to  Prester  John's  Kingdom, 
since  I  have  been  told  that  he  has  lately  mar 
ried  Pope  Joan.  Do  you  see  that  grove  of 
trees  there  at  the  base  of  the  mountains?" 

I  answered  that  I  thought  I  could  distinguish 
weirdly  contorted  branches  and  strangely  shiv 
ering  foliage. 


A    PRIMER    OF    IMAGINARY    GEOGRAPHY          19 

"That  is  the  deadly  upas-tree,"  he  explained, 
"  and  it  is  as  much  as  a  man's  life  is  worth  to 
lie  down  in  the  shade  of  its  twisted  limbs.  I 
slept  there,  on  that  point  where  the  trees  are 
the  thickest,  for  a  fortnight  a  century  or  so 
ago — but  all  I  had  for  my  pains  was  a  head 
ache.  Still  I  should  not  advise  you  to  ad 
venture  yourself  under  the  shadow  of  those 
melancholy  boughs." 

I  confess  at  once  that  I  was  little  prompted 
to  a  visit  so  dangerous  and  so  profitless. 

"  Profitless  ?"  he  repeated.  "  As  to  that  I 
am  not  so  certain,  for  if  you  have  a  mind  to 
see  the  rarest  animals  in  the  world,  you  could 
there  sate  your  curiosity.  On  the  shore,  be 
tween  the  foot-hills  and  the  grove  of  upas,  is  a 
park  of  wild  beasts,  the  like  of  which  no  man 
has  looked  upon  elsewhere.  Even  from  the 
deck  of  this  ship  I  have  seen  more  than  once  a 
drove  of  unicorns,  or  a  herd  of  centaurs,  come 
down  to  the  water  to  drink;  and  sometimes  I 
have  caught  a  pleasant  glimpse  of  satyrs  and 
fauns  dancing  in  the  sunlight.  And  once  in 
deed — I  shall  never  forget  that  extraordinary 
spectacle  —  as  I  sped  past  with  every  sail  set 
and  a  ten-knot  breeze  astern,  I  saw  the  phoenix 


20  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

blaze  up  in  its  new  birth,  while  the  little  sala 
manders  frisked  in  the  intense  flame." 

"The  phoenix?"  I  cried.  "You  have  seen 
the  phoenix?" 

"  In  just  this  latitude,"  he  answered,  "  but  it 
was  about  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening  and  I 
remember  that  the  new  moon  was  setting 
behind  the  mountains  when  I  happened  to 
come  on  deck." 

"  And  what  was  the  phoenix  like  ?"  I  asked. 

"  Really,"  he  replied,  "  the  bird  was  almost 
as  Herodotus  described  her,  of  the  make  and 
size  of  the  eagle,  with  a  plumage  partly  red 
and  partly  golden.  If  we  go  by  the  point  by 
noon,  perhaps  you  may  see  her  for  yourself." 

"  Is  she  there  still  ?"  I  asked,  in  wonder. 

"  Why  not  ?"  he  returned.  "  All  the  game  of 
this  sort  is  carefully  preserved  and  the  law  is 
off  on  phoenixes  only  once  in  a  century.  Why, 
if  it  were  not  for  the  keepers,  there  soon  would 
not  be  a  single  griffin  or  dragon  left,  not  a 
single  sphinx,  not  a  single  chimaera.  Even  as 
it  is,  I  am  told  they  do  not  breed  as  freely 
now  as  when  they  could  roam  the  whole  world 
in  safety.  That  is  why  the  game  laws  are  so 
rigorous.  Indeed,  I  am  informed  and  believe 


A    PRIMER    OF    IMAGINARY    GEOGRAPHY          21 

that  it  is  not  permitted  to  kill  the  were-wolves 
even  when  their  howling,  as  they  run  at  large 
at  night,  prevents  all  sleep.  It  is  true,  of 
course,  that  very  few  people  care  to  remain  in 
such  a  neighborhood." 

"  I  should  think  not,"  I  agreed.  "  And  what 
manner  of  people  are  they  who  dare  to  live 
here?" 

"  Along  the  shore  there  are  a  few  harpies," 
he  answered ;  "  and  now  and  then  I  have  seen 
a  mermaid  on  the  rocks  combing  her  hair  with 
a  golden  comb  as  she  sang  to  herself." 

"Harpies?"  I  repeated,  in  disgust.  "Why 
not  the  sea-serpent  also  ?" 

"  There  was  a  sea-serpent  which  lived  for  years 
in  that  cove  yonder,"  said  the  Captain,  pointing 
to  a  pleasant  bay  on  the  starboard,  "  but  I  have 
not  seen  it  lately.  Unless  I  am  in  error,  it  had 
a  pitched  battle  hereabouts  with  a  kraken.  I 
don't  remember  who  got  the  better  of  the  fight 
— but  I  haven't  seen  the  snake  since." 

As  I  scanned  the  surface  of  the  water  to 
see  if  I  might  not  detect  some  trace  of  one  or 
another  of  these  marvellous  beasts  of  the  sea, 
I  remarked  a  bank  of  fog  lying  across  our 
course. 


23  TALES   OF   FANTASY    AND   FACT 

"And  what  is  this  that  we  are  coming  to?" 
I  inquired. 

"That?"  Captain  Yanderdecken  responded, 
indicating  the  misty  outline  straight  before  us. 
"  That  is  Altruria — at  least  it  is  so  down  in  the 
charts,  but  I  have  never  set  eyes  on  it  actually. 
It  belongs  to  Utopia,  you  know ;  and  they  say 
that,  although  it  is  now  on  the  level  of  the 
earth,  it  used  once  to  be  a  flying  island — the 
same  which  was  formerly  known  as  Laputa, 
and  which  was  first  visited  and  described  by 
Captain  Lemuel  Gulliver  about  the  year  1727, 
or  a  little  earlier." 

"  So  that  is  Altruria,"  I  said,  trying  in  vain 
to  see  it  more  clearly.  "  There  was  an  Altru- 
rian  in  New  York  not  long  ago,  but  I  had  no 
chance  of  speech  with  him." 

"  They  are  pleasant  folk,  those  Altrurians," 
said  the  Captain,  "  although  rather  given  to 
boasting.  And  they  have  really  little  enough 
to  brag  about,  after  all.  Their  climate  is  ex 
ecrable — I  find  it  ever  windy  hereabouts,  and 
when  I  get  in  sight  of  that  bank  of  fog,  I  al 
ways  look  out  for  squalls.  I  don't  know  just 
what  the  population  is  now,  but  I  doubt  if  it  is 
growing.  You  see,  people  talk  about  moving 


A    PRIMER   OF   IMAGINARY   GEOGRAPHY         23 

there  to  live,  but  they  are  rarely  in  a  hurry  to 
do  it,  I  notice.  Nor  are  the  manufactures  of 
the  Altrurians  as  many  as  they  were  said  to  be. 
Their  chief  export  now  is  the  famous  Procrus 
tean  bed ;  although  the  old  house  of  Damocles 
&  Co.  still  does  a  good  business  in  swords. 
Their  tonnage  is  not  what  it  used  to  be,  and 
I'm  told  that  they  are  issuing  a  good  deal  of 
paper  money  now  to  try  and  keep  the  balance 
of  trade  in  their  favor." 

"Are  there  not  many  poets  among  the  in 
habitants  of  Altruria  ?"  I  asked. 

"  They  are  all  poets  and  romancers  of  one 
kind  or  another,"  declared  the  Captain.  "  Come 
below  again  into  the  cabin,  and  I  will  show 
you  some  of  their  books." 

The  sky  was  now  overcast  and  there  was  a 
chill  wind  blowing,  so  I  was  not  at  all  loath  to 
leave  the  deck,  and  to  follow  Yanderdecken 
down  the  steps  into  the  cabin. 

He  took  a  thin  volume  from  the  table. 
"  This,"  he  said,  is  one  of  their  books — '  News 
from  Nowhere,'  it  is  called." 

He  extended  it  towards  me,  and  I  held  out  my 
hand  for  it,  but  it  slipped  through  my  fingers. 
I  started  forward  in  a  vain  effort  to  seize  it. 


24  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

As  I  did  so,  the  walls  and  the  floor  of  the 
cabin  seemed  to  melt  away  and  to  dissolve  in 
air,  and  beyond  them  and  taking  their  place 
were  the  walls  and  floor  of  my  own  house. 
Then  suddenly  the  clock  on  the  mantelpiece 
struck  five,  and  I  heard  a  bob-tail  car  rattling 
and  clattering  past  the  door  on  its  way  across 
town  to  Union  Square,  and  thence  to  Green 
wich  Village,  and  so  on  down  to  the  Iloboken 
Ferry. 

Then  I  found  myself  on  my  own  sofa,  bend 
ing  forward  to  pick  up  the  volume  of  Cyrano 
de  Bergerac,  which  lay  on  the  carpet  at  my 
feet.  I  sat  up  erect  and  collected  my  thoughts 
as  best  I  could  after  so  strange  a  journey.  And 
I  wondered  why  it  was  that  no  one  had  ever  pre 
pared  a  primer  of  imaginary  geography,  giv 
ing  to  airy  nothings  a  local  habitation  and  a 
name,  and  accompanying  it  with  an  atlas  of 
maps  in  the  manner  of  the  Carte  du  Pays  de 
Tendre. 

(1894.) 


THE    KINETOSCOPE    OF    TIME 


THE   KINETOSCOPE   OF   TIME 


IS  the  twelfth  stroke  of  the  bell 
in  the  tower  at  the  corner  tolled 
forth  slowly,  the  midnight  wind 
blew  chill  down  the  deserted  av 
enue,  and  swept  it  clear  of  all  belated  way 
farers.  The  bare  trees  in  the  thin  strip  of 
park  clashed  their  lifeless  branches ;  the  river 
far  below  slipped  along  silently.  There  was 
no  moon,  and  the  stars  were  shrouded.  It  was 
a  black  night.  Yet  far  in  the  distance  there 
was  a  gleam  of  cheerful  light  which  lured  me 
on  and  on.  I  could  not  have  said  why  it  was 
that  I  had  ventured  forth  at  that  hour  on  such 
a  night.  It  seemed  to  me  as  though  the  yel 
low  glimmer  I  beheld  afar  off  was  the  goal  of 
my  excursion.  Something  within  whispered 
to  me  then  that  I  need  go  no  farther  when 


28  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

once  I  had  come  to  the  spot  whence  the  soft 
glare  proceeded. 

The  pall  of  darkness  was  so  dense  that  I 
could  not  see  the  sparse  houses  I  chanced  to 
pass,  nor  did  I  know  where  I  was  any  more. 
I  urged  forward  blindly,  walking  towards  the 
light,  which  was  all  that  broke  the  blackness 
before  me;  its  faint  illumination  seemed  to 
me  somehow  to  be  kindly,  inviting,  irresisti 
ble.  At  last  I  came  to  a  halt  in  front  of  a 
building  I  had  never  before  seen,  although  I 
thought  myself  well  acquainted  with  that  part 
of  the  city.  It  was  a  circular  edifice,  or  so  it 
seemed  to  me  then ;  and  I  judged  that  it  had 
but  a  single  story,  or  two,  at  the  most.  The 
door  stood  open  to  the  street ;  and  it  was  from 
this  that  the  light  was  cast.  So  dim  was  this 
illumination  now  I  had  come  to  it  that  I  mar 
velled  I  could  have  seen  it  at  all  afar  off  as  I 
was  when  first  I  caught  sight  of  it. 

While  I  stood  at  the  portal  of  the  unsus 
pected  edifice,  peering  doubtfully  within,  won 
dering  to  what  end  I  had  been  led  thither,  and 
hesitating  as  to  my  next  step,  I  felt  again  the 
impulse  to  go  forward.  At  that  moment  tiny 
darts  of  fire,  as  it  were,  glowed  at  the  end  of 


THE    KINETOSCOPE    OF    TIME  29 

the  hall  that  opened  before  me,  and  they  ran 
together  rapidly  and  joined  in  liquid  lines  and 
then  faded  as  suddenly  as  they  had  come- 
but  not  too  soon  for  me  to  read  the  simple 
legend  they  had  written  in  the  air — an  invi 
tation  to  me,  so  I  interpreted  it,  to  go  forward 
again,  to  enter  the  building,  and  to  see  for 
myself  why  I  had  been  enticed  there. 

Without  hesitation  I  obeyed.  I  walked 
through  the  doorway,  and  I  became  con 
scious  that  the  door  had  closed  behind  me  as 
I  pressed  forward.  The  passage  was  narrow 
and  but  faintly  lighted ;  it  bent  to  the  right 
with  a  circular  sweep  as  though  it  skirted  the 
inner  circumference  of  the  building ;  still  curv 
ing,  it  sank  by  a  gentle  gradient ;  and  then  it 
rose  again  and  turned  almost  at  right  angles. 
Pushing  ahead  resolutely,  although  in  not  a 
little  doubt  as  to  the  meaning  of  my  advent 
ure,  I  thrust  aside  a  heavy  curtain,  soft  to  the 
hand.  Then  I  found  myself  just  inside  a  large 
circular  hall.  Letting  the  hangings  fall  be 
hind  me,  I  took  three  or  four  irresolute  paces 
which  brought  me  almost  to  the  centre  of  the 
room.  I  saw  that  the  walls  were  continuously 
draped  with  the  heavy  folds  of  the  same  soft 


30        TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

velvet,  so  that  I  could  not  even  guess  where  it 
was  I  had  entered.  The  rotunda  was  bare  of 
all  furniture ;  there  was  no  table  in  it,  no  chair, 
no  sofa;  nor  was  anything  hanging  from  the 
ceiling  or  against  the  curtained  walls.  All  that 
the  room  contained  was  a  set  of  four  curiously 
shaped  narrow  stands,  placed  over  against  one 
another  at  the  corners  of  what  might  be  a 
square  drawn  within  the  circle  of  the  hall. 
These  narrow  stands  were  close  to  the  cur 
tains  ;  they  were  perhaps  a  foot  wide,  each  of 
them,  or  it  might  be  a  little  more :  they  were 
twice  or  three  times  as  long  as  they  were  wide; 
and  they  reached  a  height  of  possibly  three  or 
four  feet. 

Going  towards  one  of  these  stands  to  exam 
ine  it  more  curiously,  I  discovered  that  there 
were  two  projections  from  the  top,  resembling 
eye-pieces,  as  though  inviting  the  beholder  to 
gaze  into  the  inside  of  the  stand.  Then  I 
thought  I  heard  a  faint  metallic  click  above 
my  head.  liaising  my  eyes  swiftly,  I  read  a  few 
words  written,  as  it  were,  against  the  dark  vel 
vet  of  the  heavy  curtains  in  dots  of  flame  that 
flowed  one  into  the  other  and  melted  away  in 
a  moment.  When  this  mysterious  legend  had 


THE    KINETOSCOPE    OF    TIME  81 

faded  absolutely,  I  could  not  recall  the  words 
I  had  read  in  the  fitful  and  flitting  letters  of 
fire,  and  yet  I  retained  the  meaning  of  the 
message ;  and  I  understood  that  if  I  chose  to 
peer  through  the  eye-pieces  I  should  see  a 
succession  of  strange  dances. 

To  gaze  upon  dancing  was  not  what  I  had 
gone  forth  to  do,  but  I  saw  no  reason  why  I 
should  not  do  so,  as  I  was  thus  strangely  bid 
den.  I  lowered  my  head  until  my  eyes  were 
close  to  the  two  openings  at  the  top  of  the 
stand.  I  looked  into  blackness  at  first,  and 
yet  I  thought  that  I  could  detect  a  mystic 
commotion  of  the  invisible  particles  at  which 
I  was  staring.  I  made  no  doubt  that,  if  I 
waited,  in  due  season  the  promise  would  be 
fulfilled.  After  a  period  of  expectancy  which 
I  could  not  measure,  infinitesimal  sparks  dart 
ed  hither  and  thither,  and  there  was  a  slight 
crackling  sound.  I  concentrated  my  atten 
tion  on  what  I  was  about  to  see ;  and  in  a 
moment  more  I  was  rewarded. 

The  darkness  took  shape  and  robed  itself  in 
color;  and  there  arose  out  of  it  a  spacious 
banquet-hall,  where  many  guests  sat  at  supper. 
I  could  not  make  out  whether  they  were  Ro- 


32        TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

mans  or  Orientals ;  the  structure  itself  had  a 
Latin  solidity,  but  the  decorations  were  Eastern 
in  their  glowing  gorgeousness.  The  hall  was 
illumined  by  hanging  lamps,  by  the  light  of 
which  I  tried  to  decide  whether  the  ruler  who 
sat  in  the  seat  of  honor  was  a  Roman  or  an 
Oriental.  The  beautiful  woman  beside  him 
struck  me  as  Eastern  beyond  all  question. 
While  I  gazed  intently  he  turned  to  her  and 
proffered  a  request.  She  smiled  acquiescence, 
and  there  was  a  flash  of  anticipated  triumph 
in  her  eye  as  she  beckoned  to  a  menial  and 
sent  him  forth  with  a  message.  A  movement 
as  of  expectancy  ran  around  the  tables  where 
the  guests  sat  at  meat.  The  attendants  opened 
wide  the  portals  and  a  young  girl  came  for 
ward.  She  was  perhaps  fourteen  or  fifteen 
years  of  age,  but  jn  the  East  women  ripen 
young,  and  her  beauty  was  indisputable.  She 
had  large,  deep  eyes  and  a  full  mouth;  and 
there  was  a  chain  of  silver  and  golden  coins 
twisted  into  her  coppery  hair.  She  was  so  like 
to  the  woman  who  sat  beside  the  ruler  that  I 
did  not  doubt  them  to  be  mother  and  daugh 
ter.  At  a  word  from  the  elder  the  younger 
began  to  dance;  and  her  dance  was  Oriental, 


THE    KINETOSCOPE    OF    TIME  33 

slow  at  first,  but  holding  every  eye  with  its 
sensual  fascination.  The  girl  was  a  mistress 
of  the  art ;  and  not  a  man  in  the  room  with 
drew  his  gaze  from  her  till  she  made  an  end 
and  stood  motionless  before  the  ruler.  He 
said  a  few  words  I  could  not  hear,  and  then 
the  daughter  turned  to  the  mother  for  guid 
ance  ;  and  again  I  caught  the  flash  of  triumph 
in  the  elder  woman's  eye  and  on  her  face  the 
suggestion  of  a  hatred  about  to  be  glutted. 
And  then  the  light  faded  and  the  darkness 
settled  down  on  the  scene  and  I  saw  no  more. 
I  did  not  raise  my  head  from  the  stand,  for 
I  felt  sure  that  this  was  not  all  I  was  to  be 
hold  ;  and  in  a  few  moments  there  was  again 
a  faint  scintillation.  In  time  the  light  was 
strong  enough  for  me  to  perceive  the  irregular 
flames  of  a  huge  bonfire  burning  in  an  old 
square  of  some  mediaeval  city.  It  was  even 
ing,  and  yet  a,  throng  of  men  and  women  and 
children  made  an  oval  about  the  fire  and  about 
a  slim  girl  who  had  spread  a  Persian  carpet  on 
the  rough  stones  of  the  broad  street.  She  was 
a  brunette,  with  dense  black  hair ;  she  wore  a 
striped  skirt,  and  a  jacket  braided  with  gold 
had  slipped  from  her  bare  shoulders.  She  held 


34  TALES    OF    FANTASY   AND    FACT 

a  tambourine  in  her  hand  and  she  was  twist 
ing  and  turning  in  cadence  to  her  own  song. 
Then  she  went  to  one  side  where  stood  a  white 
goat  with  gilded  horns  and  put  down  her  tam 
bourine  and  took  up  two  swords;  and  with 
these  in  her  hands  she  resumed  her  dance.  A 
man  in  the  throng,  a  man  of  scant  thirty-five, 
but  already  bald,  a  man  of  stalwart  frame, 
fixed  hot  eyes  upon  her;  and  from  time  to 
time  a  smile  and  a  sigh  met  on  his  lips,  but 
the  smile  was  more  dolorous  than  the  sio-h 

t5 

And  as  the  gypsy  girl  ceased  her  joyous  gyra 
tions,  the  bonfire  died  out,  and  darkness  fell 
on  the  scene  again,  and  I  could  no  longer  see 
anything. 

Again  I  waited,  and  after  an  interval  no 
longer  than  the  other  there  came  a  faint  glow 
that  grew  until  I  saw  clearly  as  in  the  morn 
ing  sun  the  glade  of  a  forest  through  which  a 
brook  rippled.  A  sad-faced  woman  sat  on  a 
stone  by  the  side  of  the  streamlet ;  her  gray 
garments  set  off  the  strange  ornament  in  the 
fashion  of  a  single  letter  of  the  alphabet  that 
was  embroidered  in  gold  and  in  scarlet  over 
her  heart.  Visible  at  some  distance  was  a  lit 
tle  girl,  like  a  bright  -  apparelled  vision,  in  a 


THE    KINETOSCOPE    OF    TIME  35 

sunbeam,  which  fell  down  upon  her  through 
an  arch  of  boughs.  The  ray  quivered  to  arid 
fro,  making  her  figure  dim  or  distinct,  now 
like  a  real  child,  now  like  a  child's  spirit,  as  the 
splendor  came  and  went.  With  violets  and 
anemones  and  columbines  the  little  girl  had 
decorated  her  hair.  The  mother  looked  at 
the  child  and  the  child  danced  and  sparkled 
and  prattled  airily  along  the  course  of  the 
streamlet,  which  kept  up  a  babble,  kind,  quiet, 
soothing,  but  melancholy.  Then  the  mother 
raised  her  head  as  though  her  ears  had  de 
tected  the  approach  of  some  one  through  the 
wood.  But  before  I  could  see  who  this  new 
comer  might  be,  once  more  the  darkness  set 
tled  down  upon  the  scene. 

This  time  I  knew  the  interval  between  the 
succeeding  visions  and  I  waited  without  impa 
tience ;  and  in  due  season  I  found  myself  gaz 
ing  at  a  picture  as  different  as  might  be  from 
any  I  had  yet  beheld. 

In  the  broad  parlor  of  a  house  that  seemed 
to  be  spacious,  a  middle  -  aged  lady,  of  an  ap 
pearance  at  once  austere  and  kindly,  was  look 
ing  at  a  smiling  gentleman  who  was  coming 
towards  her  pulling  along  a  little  negro  girl 


36  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

about  eight  or  nine  years  of  age.  She  was  one 
of  the  blackest  of  her  race ;  and  her  round, 
shining  eyes,  glittering  as  glass  beads,  moved 
with  quick  and  restless  glances  over  everything 
in  the  room.  Pier  woolly  hair  was  braided  in 
sundry  little  tails,  which  stuck  out  in  every 
direction.  She  was  dressed  in  a  single  filthy, 
ragged  garment,  made  of  bagging ;  and  alto 
gether  there  was  something  odd  and  goblin- 
like  about  her  appearance.  The  severe  old 
maid  examined  this  strange  creature  in  dismay 
and  then  directed  a  glance  of  inquiry  at  the 
gentleman  in  white.  He  smiled  again  and 
gave  a  signal  to  the  little  negro  girl.  Where 
upon  the  black  eyes  glittered  with  a  kind  of 
wicked  drollery,  and  apparently  she  began  to 
sing,  keeping  time  with  her  hands  and  feet, 
spinning  round,  clapping  her  hands,  knocking 
her  knees  together,  in  a  wild,  fantastic  sort  of 
time ;  and  finally,  turning  a  somersault  or  two, 
she  came  suddenly  down  on  the  carpet,  and 
stood  with  her  hands  folded,  and  a  most  sanc 
timonious  expression  of  meekness  and  solemni 
ty  over  her  face,  only  broken  by  the  cunning 
glances  which  she  shot  askance  from  the  cor 
ners  of  her  eyes.  The  elderly  lady  stood  si- 


THE    KINETOSCOPE    OF   TIME  37 

lent,  perfectly  paralyzed  with  amazement,  while 
the  smiling  gentleman  in  white  was  amused  at 
her  astonishment. 

Once  more  the  vision  faded.  And  when, 
after  the  same  interval,  the  darkness  began  to 
disappear  again,  even  while  everything  was  dim 
and  indistinct  I  knew  that  the  scene  was  shifted 
from  the  South  to  the  North.  I  saw  a  room 
comfortably  furnished,  with  a  fire  smoulder 
ing  in  a  porcelain  stove.  In  a  corner  stood  a 
stripped  Christmas-tree,  with  its  candles  burned 
out.  Against  the  wall  between  the  two  doors 
was  a  piano,  on  which  a  man  was  playing — a 
man  who  twisted  his  head  now  and  again  to 
look  over  his  shoulder,  sometimes  at  another 
and  younger  man  standing  by  the  stove,  some 
times  at  a  young  woman  who  was  dancing  alone 
in  the  centre  of  the  room.  This  young  woman 
had  draped  herself  in  a  long  parti  -  colored 
shawl  and  she  held  a  tambourine  in  her  hand. 
There  was  in  her  eyes  a  look  of  fear,  as  of  one 
conscious  of  an  impending  misfortune.  As  I 
gazed  she  danced  more  and  more  wildly.  The 
man  standing  by  the  porcelain  stove  was  ap 
parently  making  suggestions,  to  which  she  paid 
no  heed.  At  last  her  hair  broke  loose  and  fell 


38  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

over  her  shoulders ;  and  even  this  she  did  not 
notice,  going  on  with  her  dancing  as  though  it 
were  a  matter  of  life  and  death.  Then  one  of 
the  doors  opened  and  another  woman  stood  on 
the  threshold.  The  man  at  the  piano  ceased 
playing  and  left  the  instrument.  The  dancer 
paused  unwillingly,  and  looked  pleadingly  up 
into  the  face  of  the  younger  man  as  he  came 
forward  and  put  his  arm  around  her. 

And  then  once  more  the  light  died  away  and 
I  found  myself  peering  into  a  void  blackness. 
This  time,  though  I  waited  long,  there  were  no 
crackling  sparks  announcing  another  inexpli 
cable  vision.  I  peered  intently  into  the  stand, 
but  I  saw  nothing.  At  last  I  raised  my  head 
and  looked  about  me.  Then  on  the  hangings 
over  another  of  the  four  stands,  over  the  one 
opposite  to  that  into  which  I  had  been  looking, 
there  appeared  another  message,  the  letters 
melting  one  into  another  in  lines  of  liquid  light ; 
and  this  told  me  that  in  the  other  stand  I  could, 
if  I  chose,  gaze  upon  combats  as  memorable  as 
the  delectable  dances  I  had  been  beholding. 

I  made  no  hesitation,  but  crossed  the  room 
and  took  my  place  before  the  other  stand  and 
began  at  once  to  look  through  the  projecting 


THE    KINETOSCOPE    OF    TIME  39 

eye-pieces.  ISTo  sooner  had  I  taken  this  posi 
tion  than  the  dots  of  fire  darted  across  the 
depth  into  which  I  was  gazing ;  and  then  there 
came  a  full  clear  light  as  of  a  cloudless  sky, 
and  I  saw  the  walls  of  an  ancient  city.  At  the 
gates  of  the  city  there  stood  a  young  man,  and 
toward  him  there  ran  a  warrior,  brandishing  a 
spear,  while  the  bronze  of  his  helmet  and  his 
armor  gleamed  in  the  sunlight.  And  trembling 
seized  the  young  man  and  he  fled  in  fear ;  and 
the  warrior  darted  after  him,  trusting  in  his 
swift  feet.  Valiant  was  the  flier,  but  far  might 
ier  he  who  fleetingly  pursued  him.  At  last 
the  young  man  took  heart  and  made  a  stand 
against  the  warrior.  They  faced  each  other 
in  fight.  The  warrior  hurled  his  spear  and  it 
went  over  the  young  man's  head.  And  the 
young  man  then  hurled  his  spear  in  turn  and 
it  struck  fair  upon  the  centre  of  the  warrior's 
shield.  Then  the  young  man  drew  his  sharp 
sword  that  by  his  flank  hung  great  and  strong. 
But  by  some  magic  the  warrior  had  recovered 
his  spear;  and  as  the  young  man  came  forward 
he  hurled  it  again,  and  it  drove  through  the  neck 
of  the  young  man  at  the  joint  of  his  armor, 
and  he  fell  in  the  dust.  After  that  the  sun 


40        TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

was  darkened ;  and  in  a  moment  more  I  was 
looking  into  an  empty  blackness. 

"When  again  the  light  returned  it  was  once 
more  with  the  full  blaze  of  mid-day  that  the 
scene  was  illumined,  and  the  glare  of  the  sun 
was  reflected  from  the  burning  sands  of  the  des 
ert.     Two  or  three  palms  arose  near  a  well,  and 
there  two  horsemen  faced  each  other  warily. 
One  was  a  Christian  knight  in  a  coat  of  linked 
mail,  over  which  he  wore  a  surcoat  of  em 
broidered  cloth,  much  frayed  and  bearing  more 
than  once  the  arms  of  the  wearer — a  couchant 
leopard.     The  other  was  a  Saracen,  who  was 
circling  swiftly  about  the  knight  of  the  leop 
ard.     The  crusader  suddenly  seized  the  mace 
which  hung  at  his  saddle-bow,  and  with  a 
strong  hand  and  unerring  aim  sent  it  crashing 
against  the  head  of  his  foe,  who  raised  his 
buckler  of  rhinoceros-hide  in  time  to  save  his 
life,  though  the  force  of  the  blow  bore  him 
from  the  saddle.    The  knight  spurred  his  steed 
forward,  but  the  Saracen  leaped  into  his  seat 
again  without  touching  the  stirrup.     While 
the  Christian  recovered  his  mace,  the  infidel 
withdrew  to  a  little  distance  and  strung  the 
short  bow  he  carried  at  his  back.     Then  he 


THE    KINETOSCOPE    OF   TIME  41 

A 

circled  about  his  foe,  whose  armor  stood  him 
in  good  stead,  until  the  seventh  shaft  appar 
ently  found  a  less  perfect  part,  and  the  Chris 
tian  dropped  heavily  from  his  horse.  But  the 
dismounted  Oriental  found  himself  suddenly  in 
the  grasp  of  the  European,  who  had  recourse 
to  this  artifice  to  bring  his  enemy  within  his 
reach.  The  Saracen  was  saved  again  by  his 
agility  ;  and  loosing  his  sword-belt,  which  the 
knight  had  grasped,  he  mounted  his  watching 
horse.  He  had  lost  his  sword  and  his  arrows 
and  his  turban,  and  these  disadvantages  seemed 
to  incline  him  for  a  truce.  He  approached 
the  Christian  with  his  right  hand  extended, 
but  no  longer  in  a  menacing  attitude.  "What 
the  result  of  this  proffer  of  a  parley  might  be 
I  could  not  observe,  fbr  the  figures  became  in 
distinct,  as  though  a  cloud  had  settled  down 
on  them ;  and  in  a  few  seconds  more  all  was 
blank  before  me. 

When  the  next  scene  grew  slowly  into  view 
I  thought  for  a  moment  it  might  be  a  contin 
uation  of  the  preceding,  for  the  country  I  be 
held  was  also  soaking  in  the  hot  sunlight  of  the 
South,  and  there  was  also  a  mounted  knight 
in  armor.  A  second  glance  undeceived  me. 


42  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

This  knight  was  old  and  thin  and  worn,  and 
his  armor  was  broken  and  pieced,  and  his  hel 
met  was  but  a  barber's  basin,  and  his  steed 
was  a  pitiful  skeleton.  His  countenance  was 
sorrowful  indeed,  but  there  was  that  in  his 
manner  which  would  stop  any  man  from  deny 
ing  his  nobility.  His  eye  was  fired  with  a  high 
purpose  and  a  lofty  resolve.  In  the  distance 
before  him  were  a  group  of  windmills  waving 
their  arms  in  the  air,  and  the  knight  urged 
forward  his  wretched  horse  as  though  to 
charge  them.  Upon  an  ass  behind  him  was  a 
fellow  of  the  baser  sort,  a  genial,  simple  fol 
lower,  seemingty  serving  him  as  his  squire. 
As  the  knight  pricked  forward  his  sorry  steed 
and  couched  his  lance,  the  attendant  appar 
ently  appealed  to  him,  and  tried  to  explain, 
and  even  ventured  on  expostulation.  But  the 
knight  gave  no  heed  to  the  protests  of  the 
squire,  who  shook  his  head  and  dutifully  fol 
lowed  his  master.  What  the  issue  of  this  un 
equal  combat  was  to  be  I  could  not  see,  for 
the  inexorable  veil  of  darkness  fell  swiftly. 

Even  after  the  stray  sparks  had  again  flitted 
through  the  blackness  into  which  I  was  gazing 
daylight  did  not  return,  and  it  was  with  diffi- 


THE    KINETOSCOPE    OF  TIME  43 

culty  I  was  able  at  last  to  make  out  a  vague 
street  in  a  mediaeval  city  doubtfully  outlined 
by  the  hidden  moon.  From  a  window  high 
above  the  stones  there  came  a  faint  glimmer. 
Under  this  window  stood  a  soldier  worn  with 
the  wars,  who  carried  himself  as  though  glad 
now  to  be  at  home  again.  He  seemed  to  hear 
approaching  feet,  and  he  withdrew  into  the 
shadow  as  two  others  advanced.  One  of  these 
was  a  handsome  youth  with  an  eager  face,  in 
which  spirituality  and  sensuality  contended. 
The  other  was  older,  of  an  uncertain  age,  and 
his  expression  was  mocking  and  evil ;  he  car 
ried  some  sort  of  musical  instrument,  and  to 
this  he  seemed  to  sing  while  the  younger  man 
looked  up  at  the  window.  The  soldier  came 
forward  angrily  and  dashed  the  instrument  to 
the  ground  with  his  sword.  Then  the  new 
comers  drew  also,  and  the  elder  guarded  while 
the  younger  thrust.  There  were  a  few  swift 
passes,  and  then  the  younger  of  the  two  lunged 
fiercely,  and  the  soldier  fell  back  on  the  stones 
wounded  to  the  death.  Without  a  glance  be 
hind  them,  the  two  who  had  withstood  his  on 
slaught  withdrew,  as  the  window  above  opened 
and  a  fair-haired  girl  leaned  forth. 


44         TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

Then  nothing  was  visible,  until  after  an  in 
terval  the  light  once  more  returned  and  I  saw  a 
sadder  scene  than  any  yet.  In  a  hollow  of  the 
bare  mountains  a  little  knot  of  men  in  dark- 
blue  uniforms  were  centred  about  their  com 
mander,  whose  long  locks  floated  from  beneath 
his  broad  hat.  Around  this  small  band  of  no 
more  than  a  score  of  soldiers,  thousands  of 
red  Indians  were  raging,  with  exultant  hate  in 
their  eyes.  The  bodies  of  dead  comrades  lay 
in  narrowing  circles  about  the  thinning  group 
of  blue-coats.  The  red  men  were  picking  off 
their  few  surviving  foes,  one  by  one ;  and  the 
white  men  could  do  nothing,  for  their  car 
tridges  were  all  gone.  They  stood  at  bay,  val 
iant  and  defiant,  despite  their  many  wounds ; 
but  the  line  of  their  implacable  foemen  was 
drawn  tighter  and  tighter  about  them,  and  one 
after  another  they  fell  forward  dying  or  dead, 
until  at  last  only  the  long-haired  commander 
was  left,  sore  wounded  but  unconquered  in 
spirit. 

When  this  picture  of  strong  men  facing 
death  fearlessly  was  at  last  dissolved  into 
darkness  like  the  others  that  had  gone  before, 
I  had  an  inward  monition  that  it  was  the  last 


THE    KINETOSCOPE    OF   TIME  45 

that  would  be  shown  me ;  and  so  it  was,  for 
although  I  kept  my  place  at  the  stand  for  two 
or  three  minutes  more,  no  warning  sparks  dis 
persed  the  opaque  depth. 

When  I  raised  my  head  from  the  eye-pieces, 
I  became  conscious  that  I  was  not  alone.  Al 
most  in  the  centre  of  the  circular  hall  stood  a 
middle-aged  man  of  distinguished  appearance, 
whose  eyes  were  fixed  upon  me.  I  wondered 
who  he  was,  and  whence  he  had  come,  and 
how  he  had  entered,  and  what  it  might  be  that 
he  wished  with  me.  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  a 
smile  that  lurked  vaguely  on  his  lips.  Neither 
this  smile  nor  the  expression  of  his  eyes  was 
forbidding,  though  both  were  uncanny  and  in 
explicable."  He  seemed  to  be  conscious  of  a 
remoteness  which  would  render  futile  any 
effort  of  his  towards  friendliness. 

How  long  we  stood  thus  staring  the  one 
at  the  other  I  do  not  know.  My  heart  beat 
heavily  and  my  tongue  refused  to  move  when 
at  last  I  tried  to  break  the  silence. 

Then  he  spoke,  and  his  voice  was  low  and 
strong  and  sweet. 

"  You  are  welcome,"  he  began,  and  I  noted 
that  the  accent  was  slightly  foreign,  Italian 


46  TALES    OF   FANTASY   AND   FACT 

perhaps,  or  it  might  be  French.  "  I  am  glad 
always  to  show  the  visions  I  have  under  my 
control  to  those  who  will  appreciate  them." 

I  tried  to  stammer  forth  a  few  words  of 
thanks  and  of  praise  for  what  I  had  seen. 

"Did  you  recognize  the  strange  scenes 
shown  to  you  by  these  two  instruments  ?"  he 
asked,  after  bowing  gently  in  acknowledg 
ment  of  my  awkward  compliments. 

Then  I  plucked  up  courage  and  made  bold 
to  express  to  him  the  surprise  I  had  felt,  not 
only  at  the  marvellous  vividness  with  which 
the  actions  had  been  repeated  before  my  eyes, 
like  life  itself  in  form  and  in  color  and  in  mo 
tion,  but  also  at  the  startling  fact  that  some 
of  the  things  I  had  been  shown  were  true  and 
some  were  false.  Some  of  them  had  happened 
actually  to  real  men  and  women  of  flesh  and 
blood,  while  others  were  but  bits  of  vain  imag 
ining  of  those  who  tell  tales  as  an  art  and  as  a 
means  of  livelihood. 

I  expressed  myself  as  best  I  could,  clumsily, 
no  doubt ;  but  he  listened  patiently  and  with 
the  smile  of  toleration  on  his  lips. 

"  Yes,"  he  answered,  "  I  understand  your 
surprise  that  the  facts  and  the  fictions  are 


THE    KINETOSCOPE    OF    TIME  47 

mingled  together  in  these  visions  of  mine  as 
though  there  was  little  to  choose  between 
them.  You  are  not  the  first  to  wonder  or  to 
express  that  wonder ;  and  the  rest  of  them 
were  young  like  you.  When  you  are  as  old 
as  I  am — when  you  have  lived  as  long  as  I — 
when  you  have  seen  as  much  of  life  as  I — then 
you  will  know,  as  I  know,  that  fact  is  often 
inferior  to  fiction,  and  that  it  is  often  also 
one  and  the  same  thing ;  for  what  might 
have  been  is  often  quite  as  true  as  what 
actually  was  ?" 

I  did  not  know  what  to  say  in  answer  to 
this,  and  so  I  said  nothing. 

"  What  would  you  say  to  me,"  he  went  on — 
and  now  it  seemed  to  me  that  his  smile  sug 
gested  rather  pitying  condescension  than  kind 
ly  toleration — "  what  would  you  say  to  me,  if 
I  were  to  tell  you  that  I  myself  have  seen  all 
the  many  visions  unrolled  before  you  in  these 
instruments  ?  What  would  you  say,  if  I  de 
clared  that  I  had  gazed  on  the  dances  of  Sa 
lome  and  of  Esmeralda?  that  I  had  beheld 
the  combat  of  Achilles  and  Hector  and  the 
mounted  fight  of  Saladin  and  the  Knight  of 
the  Leopard  3" 


48  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

"  You  are  not  Time  himself  ?"  I  asked  in 
amaze. 

He  laughed  lightly,  and  without  bitterness 
or  mockery. 

"  No,"  he  answered,  promptly,  "  I  am  not 
Time  himself.  And  why  should  you  think  so  ? 
Have  I  a  scythe  ?  Have  I  an  hour-glass  ?  Have 
I  a  forelock  ?  Do  I  look  so  very  old,  then  ?" 

I  examined  him  more  carefully  to  answer 
this  last  question,  and  the  more  I  scrutinized 
him  the  more  difficult  I  found  it  to  declare  his 
age.  At  first  I  had  thought  him  to  be  forty, 
perhaps,  or  of  a  certainty  less  than  fifty.  But 
now,  though  his  hair  was  black,  though  his  eye 
was  bright,  though  his  step  was  firm,  though 
his  gestures  were  free  and  sweeping,  I  had  my 
doubts ;  and  I  thought  I  could  perceive,  one 
after  another,  many  impalpable  signs  of  ex 
treme  old  age. 

Then,  all  at  once,  he  grew  restive  under  my 
fixed  gaze. 

"But  it  is  not  about  me  that  we  need  to 
waste  time  now,"  he  said,  impatiently.  "  You 
have  seen  what  two  of  my  instruments  con 
tain;  would  you  like  now  to  examine  the 
contents  of  the  other  two  2" 


THE    KINETOSCOPE    OF    TIME  49 

I  answered  in  the  affirmative. 

"  The  two  you  have  looked  into  are  gratui 
tous,"  he  continued.  "  For  what  you  beheld 
in  them  there  is  no  charge.  But  a  sight  of  the 
visions  in  the  other  two  or  in  either  one  of 
them  must  be  paid  for.  So  far,  you  are  wel 
come  as  my  guest;  but  if  you  wish  to  see  any 
more  you  must  pay  the  price." 

I  asked  what  the  charge  was,  as  I  thrust  my 
hand  into  my  pocket  to  be  certain  that  I  had 
my  purse  with  me. 

He  saw  my  gesture,  and  he  smiled  once 
more. 

"  The  visions  I  can  set  before  you  in  those 
two  instruments  you  have  not  yet  looked 
into  are  visions  of  your  own  life,"  he  said. 
"  In  that  stand  there,"  and  he  indicated  one 
behind  my  back,  "  you  can  see  five  of  the 
most  important  episodes  of  your  past." 

I  withdrew  my  hand  from  my  pocket.  "  I 
thank  you,"  I  said,  "  but  I  know  my  own  past, 
and  I  have  no  wish  to  see  it  again,  however 
cheap  the  spectacle." 

"Then  you  will  be  more  interested  in  the 
fourth  of  my  instruments,"  he  said,  as  he 
waved  his  thin,  delicate  hand  towards  the 


50  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

stand  which  stood  in  front  of  me.  "  In  this 
you  can  see  your  future !" 

I  made  an  involuntary  step  forward ;  and 
then,  at  a  second  thought,  I  shrank  back  again. 

"  The  price  of  this  is  not  high,"  he  contin 
ued,  "  and  it  is  not  payable  in  money." 

"How,  then,  should  I  buy  it?"  I  asked, 
doubtingly. 

"In  life!"  he  answered,  gravely.  "The 
vision  of  life  must  be  paid  for  in  life  itself. 
For  every  ten  years  of  the  future  which  I  may 
unroll  before  you  here,  you  must  assign  me  a 
year  of  life  —  twelve  months  —  to  do  with  as 
I  will." 

Strange  as  it  seems  to  me  now,  I  did  not 
doubt  that  he  could  do  as  he  declared.  I 
hesitated,  and  then  I  fixed  my  resolve. 

"  Thank  you,"  I  said,  and  I  saw  that  he  was 
awaiting  my  decision  eagerly.  "  Thank  you 
again  for  what  I  have  already  seen  and  for 
what  you  proffer  me.  But  my  past  I  have 
lived  once,  and  there  is  no  need  to  turn  over 
again  the  leaves  of  that  dead  record.  And 
the  future  I  must  face  as  best  I  may,  the  more 
bravely,  I  think,  that  I  do  not  know  what  it 
holds  in  store  for  me." 


THE    KINETOSCOPE    OF    TIME  51 

"  The  price  is  low,"  he  urged. 

"  It  must  be  lower  still,"  I  answered ;  "  it 
might  be  nothing  at  all,  and  I  should  still  de 
cline.  I  cannot  afford  to  be  impatient  now 
and  to  borrow  knowledge  of  the  future.  I 
shall  know  all  in  good  time." 

He  seemed  not  a  little  disappointed  as  I 
said  this. 

Then  he  made  a  final  appeal :  "  Would  you 
not  wish  to  know  even  the  matter  of  your 
end  ?" 

"  No,"  I  answered.  "  That  is  no  tempta 
tion  to  me,  for  whatever  it  may  be  I  must 
find  fortitude  to  undergo  it  somehow,  whether 
I  am  to  pass  away  in  my  sleep  in  my  bed, 
or  whether  I  shall  have  to  withstand  the 
chances  of  battle  and  murder  and  sudden 
death." 

"That  is  your  last  word?"  he  inquired. 

"  I  thank  you  again  for  what  I  have  seen," 
I  responded,  bowing  again ;  "  but  my  decision 
is  final." 

"  Then  I  will  detain  you  no  longer,"  he  said, 
haughtily,  and  he  walked  towards  the  circling 
curtains  and  swept  two  of  them  aside.  They 
draped  themselves  back,  and  I  saw  before  me 


52  TALES   OF   FANTASY    AND    FACT 

an  opening  like  that  through  which  I  had 
entered. 

I  followed  him,  and  the  curtains  dropped  be 
hind  me  as  I  passed  into  the  insufficiently  illu 
minated  passage  beyond.  I  thought  that  the 
mysterious  being  with  whom  I  had  been  con 
versing  had  preceded  me,  but  before  I  had  gone 
twenty  paces  I  found  that  I  was  alone.  I 
pushed  ahead,  and  my  path  twisted  and  turned 
on  itself  and  rose  and  fell  irregularly  like  that 
by  means  of  which  I  had  made  my  way  into 
the  unknown  edifice.  At  last  I  picked  my 
steps  down  winding  stairs,  and  at  the  foot  I 
saw  the  outline  of  a  door.  I  pushed  it  back, 
and  I  found  myself  in  the  open  air. 

I  was  in  a  broad  street,  and  over  my  head  an 
electric  light  suddenly  flared  out  and  white 
washed  the  pavement  at  my  feet.  At  the 
corner  a  train  of  the  elevated  railroad  rushed 
by  with  a  clattering  roar  and  a  trailing  plume 
of  white  steam.  Then  a  cable -car  clanged 
past  with  incessant  bangs  upon  its  gong.  Thus 
it  was  that  I  came  back  to  the  world  of 
actuality. 

I  turned  to  get  my  bearings,  that  I  might 
find  my  way  home  again.  I  was  standing 


THE    KINETOSCOPE    OF    TIME  53 

almost  in  front  of  a  shop,  the  windows  of 
which  were  filled  with  framed  engravings. 

One  of  these  caught  my  eye,  and  I  confess 
that  I  was  surprised.  It  was  a  portrait  of  a 
man — it  was  a  portrait  of  the  man  with  whom 
I  had  been  talking. 

I  went  close  to  the  window,  that  I  might 
see  it  better.  The  electric  light  emphasized 
the  lines  of  the  high-bred  face,  with  its  sombre 
searching  eyes  and  the  air  of  old-world  breed 
ing.  There  could  be  no  doubt  whatever  that 
the  original  of  this  portrait  was  the  man  from 
whom  I  had  just  parted.  By  the  costume  I 
knew  that  the  original  had  lived  in  the  last 
century;  and  the  legend  beneath  the  head, 
engraved  in  a  flowing  script,  asserted  this  to 
be  a  likeness  of  "Monsieur  le  Comte  de  Cayli- 
ostro" 

(1895.) 


THE  DREAM-GOWN  OF  THE  JAPANESE 
AMBASSADOR 


THE    DREAM -GOWN    OF    THE 
JAPANESE  AMBASSADOR 


FTER  arranging  the  Egyptian  and 
Mexican  pottery  so  as  to  contrast 
agreeably  with  the  Dutch  and  the 
German  beer-mugs  on  the  top  of 
the  bookcase  that  ran  along  one  wall  of  the 
sitting-room,  Cosmo  "Waynflete  went  back  into 
the  bedroom  and  took  from  a  half-empty  trunk 
the  little  cardboard  boxes  in  which  he  kept  the 
collection  of  playing-cards,  and  of  all  manner 
of  outlandish  equivalents  for  these  simple  in 
struments  of  fortune,  picked  up  here  and  there 
during  his  two  or  three  years  of  dilettante 
travelling  in  strange  countries.  At  the  same 
time  he  brought  out  a  Japanese  crystal  ball, 
which  he  stood  upon  its  silver  tripod,  placing 


58  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

it  on  a  little  table  in  one  of  the  windows  on 
each  side  of  the  fireplace ;  and  there  the  rays 
of  the  westering  sun  lighted  it  up  at  once  into 
translucent  loveliness. 

The  returned  wanderer  looked  out  of  the  win 
dow  and  saw  on  one  side  the  graceful  and  vigor 
ous  tower  of  the  Madison  Square  Garden,  with 
its  Diana  turning  in  the  December  wind,  while 
in  the  other  direction  he  could  look  down  on 
the  frozen  paths  of  Union  Square,  only  a  block 
distant,  but  as  far  below  him  almost  as  though 
he  were  gazing  down  from  a  balloon.  Then  he 
stepped  back  into  the  sitting-room  itself,  and 
noted  the  comfortable  furniture  and  wood-fire 
crackling  in  friendly  fashion  on  the  hearth, 
and  his  own  personal  belongings,  scattered  here 
and  there  as  though  they  were  settling  them 
selves  for  a  stay.  Having  arrived  from  Europe 
only  that  morning,  he  could  not  but  hold  him 
self  lucky  to  have  found  these  rooms  taken 
for  him  by  the  old  friend  to  whom  he  had  an 
nounced  his  return,  and  with  whom  he  was  to 
eat  his  Christmas  dinner  that  evening.  He  had 
not  been  on  shore  more  than  six  or  seven  hours, 
and  yet  the  most  of  his  odds  and  ends  were 
unpacked  and  already  in  place  as  though  they 


DREAM-GOWN   OF   JAPANESE   AMBASSADOR       59 

belonged  in  this  new  abode.  It  was  true  that 
he  had  toiled  unceasingly  to  accomplish  this, 
and  as  he  stood  there  in  his  shirt  -  sleeves, 
admiring  the  results  of  his  labors,  he  was  con 
scious  also  that  his  muscles  were  fatigued,  and 
that  the  easy-chair  before  the  fire  opened  its 
arms  temptingly. 

He  went  again  into  the  bedroom,  and  took 
from  one  of  his  many  trunks  a  long,  loose  gar 
ment  of  pale-gray  silk.  Apparently  this  beau 
tiful  robe  was  intended  to  serve  as  a  dressing- 
gown,  and  as  such  Cosmo  Waynflete  utilized  it 
immediately.  The  ample  folds  fell  softly  about 
him,  and  the  rich  silk  itself  seemed  to  be  sooth 
ing  to  his  limbs,  so  delicate  was  its  fibre  and 
so  carefully  had  it  been  woven.  Around  the 
full  skirt  there  was  embroidery  of  threads  of 
gold,  and  again  on  the  open  and  flowing  sleeves. 
With  the  skilful  freedom  of  Japanese  art  the 
pattern  of  this  decoration  seemed  to  suggest 
the  shrubbery  about  a  spring,  for  there  were 
strange  plants  with  huge  leaves  broadly  out 
lined  by  the  golden  threads,  and  in  the  midst 
of  them  water  was  seen  bubbling  from  the 
earth  and  lapping  gently  over  the  edge  of  the 
fountain.  As  the  returned  wanderer  thrust 


60  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

his  arms  into  the  dressing-gown  with  its  sym 
bolic  embroidery  on  the  skirt  and  sleeves,  he 
remembered  distinctly  the  dismal  day  when  he 
had  bought  it  in  a  little  curiosity-shop  in  Nu 
remberg;  and  as  he  fastened  across  his  chest 
one  by  one  the  loops  of  silken  cord  to  the  three 
coins  which  served  as  buttons  down  the  front 
of  the  robe,  he  recalled  also  the  time  and  the 
place  where  he  had  picked  up  each  of  these 
pieces  of  gold  and  silver,  one  after  another.  The 
first  of  them  was  a  Persian  daric,  which  he  had 
purchased  from  a  dealer  on  the  Grand  Canal 
in  Yenice ;  and  the  second  was  a  Spanish  peso 
struck  under  Philip  II.  at  Potosi,  which  he  had 
found  in  a  stall  on  the  embankment  of  the 
Quay  Voltaire,  in  Paris ;  and  the  third  was  a 
York  shilling,  which  he  had  bought  from  the 
man  who  had  turned  it  up  in  ploughing  a  field 
that  sloped  to  the  Hudson  near  Sleepy  Hollow. 
Having  thus  wrapped  himself  in  this  unusual 
dressing-gown  with  its  unexpected  buttons  of 
gold  and  silver,  Cosmo  Waynflete  went  back 
into  the  front  room.  He  dropped  into  the 
arm-chair  before  the  fire.  It  was  with  a  smile 
of  physical  satisfaction  that  he  stretched  out 
his  feet  to  the  hickory  blaze. 


DKEAM-GOWN   OF   JAPANESE   AMBASSADOR       61 

The  afternoon  was  drawing  on,  and  in  New 
York  the  sun  sets  early  on  Christmas  day. 
The  red  rays  shot  into  the  window  almost 
horizontally,  and  they  filled  the  crystal  globe 
with  a  curious  light.  Cosmo  Waynflete  lay 
back  in  his  easy-chair,  with  his  Japanese  robe 
about  him,  and  gazed  intently  at  the  beautiful 
ball  which  seemed  like  a  bubble  of  air  and 
water.  His  mind  went  back  to  the  afternoon 
in  April,  two  years  before,  when  he  had  found 
that  crystal  sphere  in  a  Japanese  shop  within 
sight  of  the  incomparable  Fugiyama. 


II 


As  he  peered  into  its  transparent  depths, 
with  his  vision  focused  upon  the  spot  of  light 
where  the  rays  of  the  setting  sun  touched  it 
into  flame,  he  was  but  little  surprised  to  dis 
cover  that  he  could  make  out  tiny  figures  in 
the  crystal.  For  the  moment  this  strange 
thing  seemed  to  him  perfectly  natural.  And 
the  movements  of  these  little  men  and  women 
interested  him  so  much  that  he  watched  them 
as  they  went  to  and  fro,  sweeping  a  roadway 
with  large  brooms.  Thus  it  happened  that  the 
fixity  of  his  gaze  was  intensified.  And  so  it 
was  that  in  a  few  minutes  he  saw  with  no  as 
tonishment  that  he  was  one  of  the  group  him 
self,  he  himself  in  the  rich  and  stately  attire 
of  a  samurai.  From  the  instant  that  Cosmo 
Waynflete  discovered  himself  among  the  peo 
ple  whom  he  saw  moving  before  him,  as  his 
eyes  were  fastened  on  the  illuminated  dot  in 
the  transparent  ball,  he  ceased  to  see  them  as 


DREAM-GOWN   OF   JAPANESE   AMBASSADOR       63 

little  figures,  and  he  accepted  them  as  of  the 
full  stature  of  man.  This  increase  in  their 
size  was  no  more  a  source  of  wonderment  to 
him  than  it  had  been  to  discern  himself  in  the 
midst  of  them.  He  accepted  both  of  these 
marvellous  things  without  question  —  indeed, 
with  no  thought  at  all  that  they  were  in  any 
way  peculiar  or  abnormal.  Not  only  this,  but 
thereafter  he  seemed  to  have  transferred  his 
personality  to  the  Cosmo  "VVaynflete  who  was 
a  Japanese  samurai  and  to  have  abandoned  en 
tirely  the  Cosmo  Waynflete  who  was  an  Amer 
ican  traveller,  and  who  had  just  returned  to 
New  York  that  Christmas  morning.  So  com 
pletely  did  the  Japanese  identity  dominate 
that  the  existence  of  the  American  identity 
was  wholly  unknown  to  him.  It  was  as  though 
the  American  had  gone  to  sleep  in  New  York 
at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  had 
waked  a  Japanese  in  Nippon  in  the  beginning 
of  the  eighteenth  century. 

With  his  sword  by  his  side — a  Murimasa 
blade,  likely  to  bring  bad  luck  to  the  wearer 
sooner  or  later — he  had  walked  from  his  own 
house  in  the  quarter  of  Kioto  which  is  called 
Yamashina  to  the  quarter  which  is  called 


64  TALES    OF    FANTASY   AND    FACT 

Yoshiwara,  a  place  of  ill  repute,  where  dwell 
women  of  evil  life,  and  where  roysterers  and 
drunkards  come  by  night.  He  knew  that  the 
sacred  duty  of  avenging  his  master's  death  had 
led  him  to  cast  off  his  faithful  wife  so  that  he 
might  pretend  to  riot  in  debauchery  at  the 
Three  Sea-Shores.  The  fame  of  his  shameful 
doings  had  spread  abroad,  and  it  must  soon 
come  to  the  ears  of  the  man  whom  he  wished 
to  take  unawares.  Now  he  was  lying  prone 
in  the  street,  seemingly  sunk  in  a  drunken 
slumber,  so  that  men  might  see  him  and  carry 
the  news  to  the  treacherous  assassin  of  his  be 
loved  master.  As  he  lay  there  that  afternoon, 
he  revolved  in  his  mind  the  devices  he  should 
use  to  make  away  with  his  enemy  when  the 
hour  might  be  ripe  at  last  for  the  accomplish 
ment  of  his  holy  revenge.  To  himself  he 
called  the  roll  of  his  fellow-ronins,  now  biding 
their  time,  as  he  was,  and  ready  always  to  obey 
his  orders  and  to  follow  his  lead  to  the  death, 
when  at  last  the  sun  should  rise  on  the  day  of 
vengeance. 

So  he  gave  no  heed  to  the  scoffs  and  the 
jeers  of  those  who  passed  along  the  street, 
laughing  him  to  scorn  as  they  beheld  him  ly- 


DREAM-GOWN    OF    JAPANESE    AMBASSADOR        65 

ing  there  in  a  stupor  from  excessive  drink  at 
that  inordinate  hour  of  the  day.  And  among 
those  who  came  by  at  last  was  a  maji  from 
Satsuma,  who  was  moved  to  voice  the  re 
proaches  of  all  that  saw  this  sorry  sight. 

"Is  not  this  Oishi  Kuranosuke,"  said  the 
man  from  Satsuma,  "  who  was  a  councillor  of 
Asano  Takumi  no  Kami,  and  who,  not  having 
the  heart  to  avenge  his  lord,  gives  himself  up 
to  women  and  wine  ?  See  how  he  lies  drunk 
in  the  public  street !  Faithless  beast !  Fool  and 
craven !  Unworthy  of  the  name  of  a  samurai !" 

And  with  that  the  man  from  Satsuma  trod 
on  him  as  he  lay  there,  and  spat  upon  him,  and 
went  away  indignantly.  The  spies  of  Kotsuke 
no  Suke  heard  what  the  man  from  Satsuma 
had  said,  and  they  saw  how  he  had  spurned  the 
prostrate  samurai  with  his  foot ;  and  they  went 
their  way  to  report  to  their  master  that  he 
need  no  longer  have  any  fear  of  the  councillors 
of  Asano  Takumi  no  Kami.  All  this  the  man, 
lying  prone  in  the  dust  of  the  street,  noted ; 
and  it  made  his  heart  glad,  for  then  he  made 
sure  that  the  day  was  soon  coming  when  he 
could  do  his  duty  at  last  and  take  vengeance 
for  the  death  of  his  master. 


Ill 


HE  lay  there  longer  than  he  knew,  and  the 
twilight  settled  down  at  last,  and  the  evening 
stars  came  out.  And  then,  after  a  while,  and 
by  imperceptible  degrees,  Cosmo  "VYaynflete 
became  conscious  that  the  scene  had  changed 
and  that  he  had  changed  with  it.  He  was  no 
longer  in  Japan,  but  in  Persia.  He  was  no 
longer  lying  like  a  drunkard  in  the  street  of  a 
city,  but  slumbering  like  a  weary  soldier  in  a 
little  oasis  by  the  side  of  a  spring  in  the  midst 
of  a  sandy  desert.  He  was  asleep,  and  his 
faithful  horse  was  unbridled  that  it  might 
crop  the  grass  at  will. 

The  air  was  hot  and  thick,  and  the  leaves 
of  the  slim  tree  above  him  were  never  stirred 
by  a  wandering  wind.  Yet  now  and  again 
there  came  from  the  darkness  a  faintly  fetid 
odor.  The  evening  wore  on  and  still  he  slept, 
until  at  length  in  the  silence  of  the  night  a 
strange  huge  creature  wormed  its  way  steadily 


DREAM-GOWN    OF  JAPANESE    AMBASSADOR        67 

out  of  its  lair  amid  the  trees,  and  drew  near 
the  sleeping  man  to  devour  him  fiercely.  But 
the  horse  neighed  vehemently  and  beat  the 
ground  with  his  hoofs  and  waked  his  master. 
Then  the  hideous  monster  vanished ;  and  the 
man,  aroused  from  his  sleep,  saw  nothing,  al 
though  the  evil  smell  still  lingered  in  the 
sultry  atmosphere.  He  lay  down  again  once 
more,  thinking  that  for  once  his  steed  had 
given  a  false  alarm.  Again  the  grisly  dragon 
drew  nigh,  and  again  the  courser  notified  its 
rider,  and  again  the  man  could  make  out 
nothing  in  the  darkness  of  the  night;  and 
again  he  was  wellnigh  stifled  by  the  foul 
emanation  that  trailed  in  the  wake  of  the 
misbegotten  creature.  He  rebuked  his  horse 
and  laid  him  down  once  more. 

A  third  time  the  dreadful  beast  approached, 
and  a  third  time  the  faithful  charger  awoke 
its  angry  master.  But  there  came  the  breath 
of  a  gentle  breeze,  so  that  the  man  did  not 
fear  to  fill  his  lungs ;  and  there  was  a  vague 
light  in  the  heavens  now,  so  that  he  could 
dimly  discern  his  mighty  enemy ;  and  at  once 
he  girded  himself  for  the  fight.  The  scaly 
monster  came  full  at  him  with  dripping  fangs, 


68  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

its  mighty  body  thrusting  forward  its  huge 
and  hideous  head.  The  man  met  the  attack 
without  fear  and  smote  the  beast  full  on  the 
crest,  but  the  blow  rebounded  from  its  coat  of 
mail. 

Then  the  faithful  horse  sprang  forward  and 
bit  the  dreadful  creature  full  upon  the  neck 
and  tore  away  the  scales,  so  that  its  master's 
sword  could  pierce  the  armored  hide.  So  the 
man  was  able  to  dissever  the  ghastly  head  and 
thus  to  slay  the  monstrous  dragon.  The  black 
ness  of  night  wrapped  him  about  once  more  as 
he  fell  on  his  knees  and  gave  thanks  for  his 
victory ;  and  the  w^ind  died  away  again. 


IV 


ONLY  a  few  minutes  later,  so  it  seemed  to 
him,  Cosmo  "Waynflete  became  doubtfully 
aware  of  another  change  of  time  and  place — 
of  another  transformation  of  his  own  being. 
He  knew  himself  to  be  alone  once  more,  and 
even  without  his  trusty  charger.  Again  he 
found  himself  groping  in  the  dark.  But  in  a 
little  while  there  was  a  faint  radiance  of  light, 
and  at  last  the  moon  came  out  behind  a  tower. 
Then  he  saw  that  he  was  not  by  the  roadside 
in  Japan  or  in  the  desert  of  Persia,  but  now 
in  some  unknown  city  of  Southern  Europe, 
where  the  architecture  was  hispano-moresque. 
By  the  silver  rays  of  the  moon  he  was  able  to 
make  out  the  beautiful  design  damascened 
upon  the  blade  of  the  sword  which  he  held 
now  in  his  hand  ready  drawn  for  self-defence. 

Then  he  heard  hurried  footfalls  down  the 
empty  street,  and  a  man  rushed  around  the 
corner  pursued  by  two  others,  who  had  also 


70  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

weapons  in  their  hands.  For  a  moment  Cosmo 
Waynflete  was  a  Spaniard,  and  to  him  it  was 
a  point  of  honor  to  aid  the  weaker  party.  He 
cried  to  the  fugitive  to  pluck  up  heart  and  to 
withstand  the  enemy  stoutly.  But  the  hunted 
man  fled  on,  and  after  him  went  one  of  the 
pursuers,  a  tall,  thin  fellow,  with  a  long  black 
cloak  streaming  behind  him  as  he  ran. 

The  other  of  the  two,  a  handsome  lad  with 
fair  hair,  came  to  a  halt  and  crossed  swords 
with  Cosmo,  and  soon  showed  himself  to  be 
skilled  in  the  art  of  fence.  So  violent  was 
the  young  fellow's  attack  that  in  the  ardor  of 
self-defence  Cosmo  ran  the  boy  through  the 
body  before  he  had  time  to  hold  his  hand  or 
even  to  reflect. 

The  lad  toppled  over  sideways.  "  Oh,  my 
mother !"  he  cried,  and  in  a  second  he  was  dead. 
While  Cosmo  bent  over  the  body,  hasty  foot 
steps  again  echoed  along  the  silent  thorough 
fare.  Cosmo  peered  around  the  corner,  and  by 
the  struggling  moonbeams  he  could  see  that  it 
was  the  tall,  thin  fellow  in  the  black  cloak, 
who  was  returning  with  half  a  score  of  retain 
ers,  all  armed,  and  some  of  them  bearing 
torches. 


DREAM-GOWN    OF    JAPANESE    AMBASSADOR        71 

Cosmo  turned  and  fled  swiftly,  but  being  a 
stranger  in  the  city  he  soon  lost  himself  in  its 
tortuous  streets.  Seeing  a  light  in  a  window 
and  observing  a  vine  that  trailed  from  the 
balcony  before  it,  he  climbed  up  boldly,  and 
found  himself  face  to  face  with  a  gray-haired 
lady,  whose  visage  was  beautiful  and  kindly 
and  noble.  In  a  few  words  he  told  her  his 
plight  and  besought  sanctuary.  She  listened 
to  him  in  silence,  with  exceeding  courtesy  of 
manner,  as  though  she  were  weighing  his 
words  before  making  up  her  mind.  She  raised 
the  lamp  on  her  table  and  let  its  beams  fall  on 
his  lineaments.  And  still  she  made  no  answer 
to  his  appeal. 

Then  came  a  glare  of  torches  in  the  street 
below  and  a  knocking  at  the  door.  Then  at 
last  the  old  lady  came  to  a  resolution;  she 
lifted  the  tapestry  at  the  head  of  her  bed  and 
told  him  to  bestow  himself  there.  No  sooner 
was  he  hidden  than  the  tall,  thin  man  in  the 
long  black  cloak  entered  hastily.  He  greeted 
the  elderly  lady  as  his  aunt,  and  he  told  her 
that  her  son  had  been  set  upon  by  a  stranger 
in  the  street  and  had  been  slain.  She  gave  a 
great  cry  and  never  took  her  eyes  from  his 


72  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

face.  Then  he  said  that  a  servant  had  seen  an 
unknown  man  climb  to  the  balcony  of  her 
house.  "What  if  it  were  the  assassin  of  her  son  ? 
The  blood  left  her  face  and  she  clutched  at 
the  table  behind  her,  as  she  gave  orders  to 
have  the  house  searched. 

When  the  room  was  empty  at  last  she  went 
to  the  head  of  the  bed  and  bade  the  man  con 
cealed  there  to  come  forth  and  begone,  but  to 
cover  his  face,  that  she  might  not  be  forced  to 
know  him  again.  So  saying,  she  dropped  on 
her  knees  before  a  crucifix,  while  he  slipped  out 
of  the  window  again  and  down  to  the  deserted 
street. 

He  sped  to  the  corner  and  turned  it  undis 
covered,  and  breathed  a  sigh  of  relief  and  of 
regret.  He  kept  on  steadily,  gliding  stealthily 
along  in  the  shadows,  until  he  found  himself 
at  the  city  gate  as  the  bell  of  the  cathedral 
tolled  the  hour  of  midnight. 


How  it  was  that  he  passed  through  the  gate 
he  could  not  declare  with  precision,  for  seem 
ingly  a  mist  had  settled  about  him.  Yet  a  few 
minutes  later  he  saw  that  in  some  fashion  he 
must  have  got  beyond  the  walls  of  the  town, 
for  he  recognized  the  open  country  all  around. 
And,  oddly  enough,  he  now  discovered  himself 
to  be  astride  a  bony  steed.  He  could  not  say 
what  manner  of  horse  it  was  he  was  riding, 
but  he  felt  sure  that  it  was  not  the  faithful 
charger  that  had  saved  his  life  in  Persia,  once 
upon  a  time,  in  days  long  gone  by,  as  it  seemed 
to  him  then.  He  was  not  in  Persia  now — of 
that  he  was  certain,  nor  in  Japan,  nor  in  the 
Iberian  peninsula.  Where  he  was  he  did  not 
know. 

In  the  dead  hush  of  midnight  he  could  hear 
the  barking  of  a  dog  on  the  opposite  shore  of 
a  dusky  and  indistinct  waste  of  waters  that 
spread  itself  far  below  him.  The  night  gre\v 


74  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

darker  and  darker,  the  stars  seemed  to  sink 
deeper  in  the  sky,  and  driving  clouds  occasion 
ally  hid  them  from  his  sight.  He  had  never 
felt  so  lonely  and  dismal.  In  the  centre  of 
the  road  stood  an  enormous  tulip-tree ;  its 
limbs  were  gnarled  and  fantastic,  large  enough 
to  form  trunks  for  ordinary  trees,  twisting 
down  almost  to  the  earth,  and  rising  again 
into  the  air.  As  he  approached  this  fearful 
tree  he  thought  he  saw  something  white  hang 
ing  in  the  midst  of  it,  but  on  looking  more 
narrowly  he  perceived  it  was  a  place  where  it 
had  been  scathed  by  lightning  and  the  white 
wood  laid  bare.  About  two  hundred  yards 
from  the  tree  a  small  brook  crossed  the  road  ; 
and  as  he  drew  near  he  beheld — on  the  margin 
of  this  brook,  and  in  the  dark  shadow  of  the 
grove — he  beheld  something  huge,  misshapen, 
black,  and  towering.  It  stirred  not,  but  seemed 
gathered  up  in  the  gloom  like  some  gigantic 
monster  ready  to  spring  upon  the  traveller. 

He  demanded,  in  stammering  accents,  "  Who 
are  you  ?"  He  received  no  reply.  He  repeated 
his  demand  in  a  still  more  agitated  voice. 
Still  there  was  no  answer.  And  then  the 
shadowy  object  of  alarm  put  itself  in  motion, 


DREAM-GOWN    OF  JAPANESE    AMBASSADOR       75 

and  with  a  scramble  and  a  bound  stood  in  the 
middle  of  the  road.  He  appeared  to  be  a 
horseman  of  large  dimensions  and  mounted 
on  a  black  horse  of  powerful  frame.  Having 
no  relish  for  this  strange  midnight  companion, 
Cosmo  Waynflete  urged  on  his  steed  in  hopes 
of  leaving  the  apparition  behind  ;  but  the 
stranger  quickened  his  horse  also  to  an  equal 
pace.  And  when  the  first  horseman  pulled  up, 
thinking  to  lag  behind,  the  second  did  like 
wise.  There  was  something  in  the  moody  and 
dogged  silence  of  this  pertinacious  companion 
that  was  mysterious  and  appalling.  It  was 
soon  fearfully  accounted  for.  On  mounting  a 
rising  ground  which  brought  the  figure  of  his 
fellow-traveller  against  the  sky,  gigantic  in 
height  and  muffled  in  a  cloak,  he  was  horror- 
struck  to  discover  the  stranger  was  headless ! 
— but  his  horror  was  still  more  increased  in 
observing  that  the  head  which  should  have 
rested  on  the  shoulders  was  carried  before  the 
body  on  the  pommel  of  the  saddle. 

The  terror  of  Cosmo  Waynflete  rose  to  des 
peration,  and  he  spurred  his  steed  suddenly  in 
the  hope  of  giving  his  weird  companion  the 
slip.  But  the  headless  horseman  started  full 


76  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

jump  with  him.  His  own  horse,  as  though  pos 
sessed  by  a  demon,  plunged  headlong  down  the 
hill.  He  could  hear,  however,  the  black  steed 
panting  and  blowing  close  behind  him ;  he 
even  fancied  that  he  felt  the  hot  breath  of  the 
pursuer.  When  he  ventured  at  last  to  cast  a 
look  behind,  he  saw  the  goblin  rising  in  the 
stirrups,  and  in  the  very  act  of  hurling  at  him 
the  grisly  head.  He  fell  out  of  the  saddle  to 
the  ground;  and  the  black  steed  and  the  gob 
lin  rider  passed  by  him  like  a  whirlwind. 


VI 

How  long  he  lay  there  by  the  roadside, 
stunned  and  motionless,  he  could  not  guess ; 
but  when  he  came  to  himself  at  last  the  sun 
was  already  high  in  the  heavens.  He  discov 
ered  himself  to  be  reclining  on  the  tall  grass 
of  a  pleasant  graveyard  which  surrounded  a 
tiny  country  church  in  the  outskirts  of  a  pret 
ty  little  village.  It  was  in  the  early  summer, 
and  the  foliage  was  green  above  him  as  the 
boughs  swayed  gently  to  and  fro  in  the  morn 
ing  breeze.  The  birds  were  singing  gayly  as 
they  flitted  about  over  his  head.  The  bees 
hummed  along  from  flower  to  flower.  At  last, 
so  it  seemed  to  him,  he  had  come  into  a  land 
of  peace  and  quiet,  where  there  was  rest  and 
comfort  and  where  no  man  need  go  in  fear  of 
his  life.  It  was  a  country  where  vengeance 
was  not  a  duty  and  where  midnight  combats 
were  not  a  custom.  He  found  himself  smiling 
as  he  thought  that  a  grisly  dragon  and  a  gob- 


78  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

lin  rider  would  be  equally  out  of  place  in  this 
laughing  landscape. 

Then  the  bell  in  the  steeple  of  the  little 
church  began  to  ring  merrily,  and  he  rose  to 
his  feet  in  expectation.  All  of  a  sudden  the 
knowledge  came  to  him  why  it  was  that  they 
were  ringing.  He  wondered  then  why  the 
coming  of  the  bride  was  thus  delayed.  He 
knew  himself  to  be  a  lover,  with  life  opening 
brightly  before  him  ;  and  the  world  seemed  to 
him  sweeter  than  ever  before  and  more  beau 
tiful. 

Then  at  last  the  girl  whom  he  loved  with  his 
whole  heart  and  who  had  promised  to  marry 
him  appeared  in  the  distance,  and  he  thought 
he  had  never  seen  her  look  more  lovely.  As 
he  beheld  his  bridal  party  approaching,  he 
slipped  into  the  church  to  await  her  at  the 
altar.  The  sunshine  fell  full  upon  the  portal 
and  made  a  halo  about  the  girl's  head  as  she 
crossed  the  threshold. 

But  even  when  the  bride  stood  by  his  side 
and  the  clergyman  had  begun  the  solemn  ser 
vice  of  the  church  the  bells  kept  on,  and  soon 
their  chiming  became  a  clangor,  louder  and 
sharper  and  more  insistent. 


VII 


So  clamorous  and  so  persistent  was  the  ring 
ing  that  Cosmo  Waynflete  was  roused  at  last. 
He  found  himself  suddenly  standing  on  his 
feet,  with  his  hand  clutching  the  back  of  the 
chair  in  which  he  had  been  sitting  before  the 
fire  when  the  rays  of  the  setting  sun  had  set 
long  ago.  The  room  was  dark,  for  it  was 
lighted  now  only  by  the  embers  of  the  burnt- 
out  fire;  and  the  electric  bell  was  ringing 
steadily,  as  though  the  man  outside  the  door 
had  resolved  to  waken  the  seven  sleepers. 

Then  Cosmo  Waynflete  was  wide-awake 
again ;  and  he  knew  where  he  was  once  more 
—  not  in  Japan,  not  in  Persia,  not  in  Lisbon, 
not  in  Sleepy  Hollow,  but  here  in  New  York, 
in  his  own  room,  before  his  own  fire.  He 
opened  the  door  at  once  and  admitted  his 
friend,  Paul  Stuyvesant. 

"  It  isn't  dinner-time,  is  it  ?"  he  asked.  "  I'm 
not  late,  ami  ?  The  fact  is,  I've  been  asleep." 


#0  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

"  It  is  so  good  of  you  to  confess  that,"  his 
friend  answered,  laughing ;  "  although  the 
length  of  time  you  kept  me  waiting  and  ring 
ing  might  have  led  me  to  suspect  it.  No,  you 
are  not  late  and  it  is  not  dinner-time.  I've 
come  around  to  have  another  little  chat  with 
you  before  dinner,  that's  all." 

"  Take  this  chair,  old  man,"  said  Cosmo,  as 
he  threw  another  hickory -stick  on  the  fire. 
Then  he  lighted  the  gas  and  sat  down  by  the 
side  of  his  friend. 

"  This  chair  is  comfortable,  for  a  fact,"  Stuy- 
vesant  declared,  stretching  himself  out  luxuri 
ously.  "  No  wonder  you  went  to  sleep.  What 
did  you  dream  of? — strange  places  you  had 
seen  in  your  travels  or  the  homely  scenes  of 
your  native  land." 

Waynflete  looked  at  his  friend  for  a  moment 
without  answering  the  question.  He  was  start 
led  as  he  recalled  the  extraordinary  series  of 
adventures  which  had  fallen  to  his  lot  since  he 
had  fixed  his  gaze  on  the  crystal  ball.  It 
seemed  to  him  as  though  he  had  been  whirled 
through  space  and  through  time. 

"  I  suppose  every  man  is  always  the  hero  of 
his  own  dreams,"  he  began,  doubtfully. 


DKEAM-GOWN    OF   JAPANESE   AMBASSADOR 


81 


"  Of  course,"  his  friend  returned ;  "  in  sleep 
our  natural  and  healthy  egotism  is  absolutely 
unrestrained.  It  doesn't  make  any  matter 
where  the  scene  is  laid  or  whether  the  play  is 
a  comedy  or  a  tragedy,  the  dreamer  has  al 
ways  the  centre  of  the  stage,  with  the  calcium 
light  turned  full  on  him." 

"  That's  just  it,"  Waynflete  went  on  ;  "  this 
dream  of  mine  makes  me  feel  as  if  I  were  an 
actor,  and  as  if  I  had  been  playing  many  parts, 
one  after  the  other,  in  the  swiftest  succession. 
They  are  not  familiar  to  me,  and  yet  I  confess 
to  a  vague  feeling  of  unoriginality.  It  is  as 
though  I  were  a  plagiarist  of  adventure — if  that 
be  a  possible  supposition.  I  have  just  gone 
through  these  startling  situations  myself,  and 
yet  I'm  sure  that  they  have  all  of  them  hap 
pened  before  —  although,  perhaps,  not  to  any 
one  man.  Indeed,  no  one  man  could  have  had 
all  these  adventures  of  mine,  because  I  see  now 
that  I  have  been  whisked  through  the  centu 
ries  and  across  the  hemispheres  with  a  sudden 
ness  possible  only  in  dreams.  Yet  all  my  ex 
periences  seem  somehow  second-hand,  and  not 
really  my  own." 

u  Ticked  up  here  and  there — like  your  brie- 


82  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

a-brac  ?"  suggested  Stuy vesant.  "  But  what 
are  these  alluring  adventures  of  yours  that 
stretched  through  the  ages  and  across  the 
continents?" 

Then,  knowing  how  fond  his  friend  was  of 
solving  mysteries  and  how  proud  he  was  of  his 
skill  in  this  art,  Cosmo  Waynflete  narrated  his 
dream  as  it  has  been  set  down  in  these  pages. 

When  he  had  made  an  end,  Paul  Stuyve- 
sant's  first  remark  was:  "I'm  sorry  I  hap 
pened  along  just  then  and  waked  you  up  be 
fore  you  had  time  to  get  married." 

His  second  remark  followed  half  a  minute 
later. 

"  I  see  how  it  was,"  he  said  ;  "  you  were  sit 
ting  in  this  chair  and  looking  at  that  crystal 
ball,  which  focussed  the  level  rays  of  the  set 
ting  sun,  I  suppose  ?  Then  it  is  plain  enough 
— you  hypnotized  yourself !" 

"  I  have  heard  that  such  a  thing  is  possible," 
responded  Cosmo. 

"  Possible?"  Stuy  vesant  returned,  "it  is  cer 
tain  !  Bat  what  is  more  curious  is  the  new  way 
in  which  vou  combined  your  self  -  h}7pnotism 
with  crystal-gazing.  You  have  heard  of  scry 
ing,  I  suppose?" 


DKEAM-GOWN    OF    JAPANESE    AMBASSADOR       83 

"  You  mean  the  practice  of  looking  into  a 
drop  of  water  or  a  crystal  ball  or  anything  of 
that  sort,"  said  Cosmo,  "  and  of  seeing  things 
in  it — of  seeing  people  moving  about  ?" 

"  That's  just  what  I  do  mean,"  his  friend 
returned.  "And  that's  just  what  you  have 
been  doing.  You  fixed  your  gaze  on  the  ball, 
and  so  'hypnotized  yourself ;  and  then,  in  the 
intensity  of  your  vision,  you  were  able  to  see 
figures  in  the  crystal — with  one  of  which  vis 
ualized  emanations  you  immediately  identified 
yourself.  That's  eas}^  enough,  I  think.  But 
I  don't  see  what  suggested  to  you  your  separate 
experiences.  I  recognize  them,  of  course — " 

"You  recognize  them?"  cried  Waynflete, 
in  wonder. 

"  I  can  tell  you  where  you  borrowed  every 
one  of  your  adventures,"  Stuyvesant  replied, 
"  But  what  I'd  like  to  know  now  is  what  sug 
gested  to  you  just  those  particular  characters 
and  situations,  and  not  any  of  the  many  oth 
ers  also  stored  away  in  your  subconsciousness." 

So  saying,  he  began  to  look  about  the  room. 

"My  subconsciousness?"  repeated  Wayn 
flete.  "Have  I  ever  been  a  samurai  in  my 
subconsciouisiiess  ?" 


84  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

Paul  Stuyvesant  looked  at  Cosmo  Wayn- 
flete  for  nearly  a  minute  without  reply.  Then 
all  the  answer  he  made  was  to  say :  "  That's  a 
queer  dressing-gown  you  have  on." 

"It  is  time  I  took  it  off,"  said  the  other,  as 
he  twisted  himself  out  of  its  clinging  folds. 
"  It  is  a  beautiful  specimen  of  weaving,  isn't 
it  ?  I  call  it  the  dream-gown  of  the  Japanese 
ambassador,  for  although  I  bought  it  in  a  curi 
osity-shop  in  Nuremberg,  it  was  once,  I  really 
believe,  the  slumber-robe  of  an  Oriental  en 
voy." 

Stuyvesant  took  the  silken  garment  from  his 
friend's  hand. 

"  Why  did  the  Japanese  ambassador  sell 
you  his  dream-gown  in  a  Nuremberg  curios 
ity-shop  ?"  he  asked. 

"  He  didn't,"  Waynflete  explained.  "  I  nev 
er  saw  the  ambassador,  and  neither  did  the  old 
German  lady  who  kept  the  shop.  She  told  me 
she  bought  it  from  a  Japanese  acrobat  who  was 
out  of  an  engagement  and  desperately  hard  up. 
But  she  told  me  also  that  the  acrobat  had  told 
her  that  the  garment  had  belonged  to  an  am 
bassador  who  had  given  it  to  him  as  a  reward 
of  his  skill,  and  that  he  never  would  have 


DREAM-GOWN    OF    JAPANESE    AMBASSADOR        85 

parted  with  it  if  he  had  not  been  dead- 
broke." 

Stuyvesant  held  the  robe  up  to  the  light 
and  inspected  the  embroidery  on  the  skirt  of  it. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  at  last,  "  this  would  account 
for  it,  I  suppose.  This  bit  here  was  probably 
meant  to  suggest  '  the  well  where  the  head 
was  washed,' — see  ?" 

"  I  see  that  those  lines  may  be  meant  to 
represent  the  outline  of  a  spring  of  water, 
but  I  don't  see  what  that  has  to  do  with  my 
dream,"  Waynflete  answered. 

"  Don't  you?"  Stuyvesant  returned.  "Then 
I'll  show  you.  You  had  on  this  silk  garment 
embroidered  here  with  an  outline  of  the  well 
in  which  was  washed  the  head  of  Kotsuke  no 
Suke,  the  man  whom  the  Forty-Seven  Eonins 
killed.  You  know  the  story  ?" 

"  I  read  it  in  Japan,  but — "  began  Cosmo. 

"  You  had  that  story  stored  away  in  your 
subconsciousness,"  interrupted  his  friend. 
"  And  when  you  hypnotized  yourself  by  peer 
ing  into  the  crystal  ball,  this  embroidery  it 
was  which  suggested  to  you  to  see  yourself  as 
the  hero  of  the  tale — Oishi  Kuranosuke,  the 
chief  of  the  Forty-Seven  Ron  ins,  the  faithful 


86  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

follower  who  avenged  his  master  by  pretend 
ing  to  be  vicious  and  dissipated  —  just  like 
Brutus  and  Lorenzaccio— until  the  enemy  was 
off  his  guard  and  open  to  attack." 

"  I  think  I  do  recall  the  tale  of  the  Forty- 
Seven  Eonins,  but  only  very  vaguely,"  said 
the  hero  of  the  dream.  "For  all  I  know  I 
may  have  had  the  adventure  of  Oishi  Kuran- 
osuke  laid  on  the  shelf  somewhere  in  mv  sub- 
consciousness,  as  you  want  me  to  believe.  But 
how  about  my  Persian  dragon  and  my  Iberian 
noblewoman  ?" 

Paul  Stuyvesant  was  examining  the  dream- 
gown  of  the  Japanese  ambassador  with  mi 
nute  care.  Suddenly  he  said,  "  Oh !"  and 
then  he  looked  up  at  Cosmo  Waynflete  and 
asked  :  "  What  are  those  buttons  ?  They  seem 
to  be  old  coins." 

"They  are  old  coins,"  the  other  answered  ; 
"  it  was  a  fancy  of  mine  to  utilize  them  on 
that  Japanese  dressing-gown.  They  are  all 
different,  you  see.  The  first  is — " 

"  Persian,  isn't  it  ?"  interrupted  Stuyvesant. 

"  Yes,"  Waynflete  explained,  "  it  is  a  Persian 

daric.    And  the  second  is  a  Spanish  peso  made 

at  Potosi  under  Philip  II.  for  use  in  America. 


DREAM-GOWN    OF  JAPANESE    AMBASSADOR        87 

And  the  third  is  a  York  shilling,  one  of  the 
coins  in  circulation  here  in  New  York  at  the 
time  of  the  [Revolution— I  got  that  one,  in  fact, 
from  the  farmer  who  ploughed  it  up  in  a  field 
at  Tarrytown,  near  Sunnyside." 

"  Then  there  are  three  of  your  adventures 
accounted  for,  Cosmo,  and  easily  enough," 
Paul  commented,  with  obvious  satisfaction  at 
his  own  explanation.  "  Just  as  the  embroidery 
on  the  silk  here  suggested  to  you— after  you 
had  hypnotized  yourself— that  you  were  the 
chief  of  the  Forty-Seven  Konins,  so  this  first 
coin  here  in  turn  suggested  to  you  that  you 
were  Eastern,  the  hero  of  the  <  Epic  of  Kings.' 
You  have  read  the  '  Shah-Nameh?' ' 

"  I  remember  Firdausi's  poem  after  a  fash 
ion  only,"  Cosmo  answered.  "  Was  not  Rus- 
tem  a  Persian  Hercules,  so  to  speak  ?" 

<•  That's  it  precisely,"  the  other  responded, 
"and  he  had  seven  labors  to  perform;  and 
you  dreamed  the  third  of  them,  the  slaying  of 
the  grisly  dragon.  For  my  own  part,  I  think  I 
should  have  preferred  the  fourth  of  them,  the 
meeting  with  the  lovely  enchantress;  but  that's 
neither  here  nor  there." 

"  It  seems  to  me  I  do  recollect  something 


88  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

about  that  fight  of  Eustem  and  the  strange 
beast.  The  faithful  horse's  name  was  Eakush, 
wasn't  it  ?"  asked  Waynflete. 

"  If  you  can  recollect  the  '  Shah-N ameh,'  " 
Stuyvesant  pursued,  "  no  doubt  you  can  recall 
also  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  c  Custom  of  the 
Country?'  That's  where  you  got  the  mid 
night  duel  in  Lisbon  and  the  magnanimous 
mother,  you  know." 

"  No,  I  didn't  know,"  the  other  declared. 
"  Well,  you  did,  for  all  that,"  Paul  went  on. 
u  The  situation  is  taken  from  one  in  a  drama 
of  Calderon's,  and  it  was  much  strengthened 
in  the  taking.  You  may  not  now  remember 
having  read  the  play,  but  the  incident  must 
have  been  familiar  to  you,  or  else  your  subcon- 
sciousness  couldn't  have  yielded  it  up  to  you 
so  readily  at  the  suggestion  of  the  Spanish 
coin,  could  it  ?" 

"I  did  read  a  lot  of  Elizabethan  drama 
in  my  senior  year  at  college,"  admitted  Cos 
mo,  "  and  this  piece  of  Beaumont  and  Fletch 
er's  may  have  been  one  of  those  I  read  ;  but  I 
totally  fail  to  recall  now  what  it  was  all 
about." 

"  You  won't  have  the  cheek  to  declare  that 


DREAM-GOWN    OF  JAPANESE   AMBASSADOR        89 

you  don't  remember  the  'Legend  of  Sleepy 
Hollow,'  will  you?"  asked  Stuyvesant.  "  Yery 
obviously  it  was  the  adventure  of  Ichabod 
Crane  and  the  Headless  Horseman  that  the 
York  shilling  suggested  to  you." 

"  I'll  admit  that  I  do  recollect  Irving's  story 
now,"  the  other  confessed. 

So  the  embroidery  on  the  dream-gown  gives 
the  first  of  your  strange  situations ;  and  the 
three  others  were  suggested  by  the  coins  you 
have  been  using  as  buttons,"  said  Paul  Stuy 
vesant.  "  There  is  only  one  thing  now  that 
puzzles  me  :  that  is  the  country  church  and 
the  noon  wedding  and  the  beautiful  bride." 

And  with  that  he  turned  over  the  folds  of 
the  silken  garment  that  hung  over  his  arm. 

Cosmo  Waynflete  hesitated  a  moment  and  a 
blush  mantled  his  cheek.  Then  he  looked  his 
friend  in  the  face  and  said  :  "  I  think  I  can  ac 
count  for  my  dreaming  about  her — I  can  ac 
count  for  that  easily  enough." 

"  So  can  I,"  said  Paul  Stuyvesant,  as  he 
held  up  the  photograph  of  a  lovely  American 
girl  that  he  had  just  found  in  the  pocket  of 
the  dream-gown  of  the  Japanese  ambassador. 

(189G. ) 


THE    RIVAL    GHOSTS 


THE    EIYAL    GHOSTS 


I  HE  good  ship  sped  on  her  way 
across  the  calm  Atlantic.  It  was 
an  outward  passage,  according  to 
the  little  charts  which  the  com 
pany  had  charily  distributed,  but  most  of  the 
passengers  were  homeward  bound,  after  a 
summer  of  rest  and  recreation,  and  they  were 
counting  the  days  before  they  might  hope  to 
see  Fire  Island  Light.  On  the  lee  side  of  the 
boat,  comfortably  sheltered  from  the  wind, 
and  just  by  the  door  of  the  captain's  room 
(which  was  theirs  during  the  day),  sat  a  little 
group  of  returning  Americans.  The  Duchess 
(she  was  down  on  the  purser's  list  as  Mrs. 
Martin,  but  her  friends  and  familiars  called 
her  the  Duchess  of  Washington  Square)  and 
Baby  Yan  Kensselaer  (she  was  quite  old 
enough  to  vote,  had  her  sex  been  entitled  to 


94  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

that  duty,  but  as  the  younger  of  two  sisters 
she  was  still  the  baby  of  the  family)— the 
Duchess  and  Baby  Van  Rensselaer  were  dis 
cussing  the  pleasant  English  voice  and  the 
not  unpleasant  English  accent  of  a  manly 
young  lordling  who  was  going  to  America 
for  sport.  Uncle  Larry  and  Dear  Jones  were 
enticing  each  other  into  a  bet  on  the  ship's 
run  of  the  morrow. 

"  I'll  give  you  two  to  one  she  don't  make 
420,"  said  Dear  Jones. 

"  I'll  take  it,"  answered  Uncle  Larry.  "  We 
made  427  the  fifth  day  last  year."  It  was 
Uncle  Larry's  seventeenth  visit  to  Europe,  and 
this  was  therefore  his  thirty-fourth  voyage. 

"And  when  did  you  get  in?"  asked  Baby 
Van  Kensseiaer.  "  I  don't  care  a  bit  about 
the  run,  so  long  as  we  get  in  soon." 

"We  crossed  the  bar  Sunday  night,  just 
seven  days  after  we  left  Queenstown,  and  we 
dropped  anchor  off  Quarantine  at  three  o'clock 
on  Monday  morning." 

"I  hope  we  sha'n't  do  that  this  time.  I 
can't  seem  to  sleep  any  when  the  boat  stops." 

"I  can,  but  I  didn't,"  continued  Uncle 
Larry,  "  because  my  state-room  was  the  most 


THE    KIVAL    GHOSTS  95 

for'ard  in  the  boat,  and  the  donkey-engine 
that  let  down  the  anchor  was  right  over  my 
head." 

"  So  you  got  up  and  saw  the  sun  rise  over 
the  bay,"  said  Dear  Jones,  "  with  the  electric 
lights  of  the  city  twinkling  in  the  distance, 
and  the  first  faint  flush  of  the  dawn  in  the 
east  just  over  Fort  Lafayette,  and  the  rosy 
tinge  which  spread  softly  upward,  and — " 

"  Did  you  both  come  back  together  ?"  asked 
the  Duchess. 

"  Because  he  has  crossed  thirty -four  times 
you  must  not  suppose  he  has  a  monopoly  in 
sunrises,"  retorted  Dear  Jones.  "No;  this 
was  my  own  sunrise  ;  and  a  mighty  pretty  one 
it  was  too." 

"  I'm  not  matching  sunrises  with  you,"  re 
marked  Uncle  Larry  calmly ;  "  but  I'm  will 
ing  to  back  a  merry  jest  called  forth  by 
my  sunrise  against  any  two  merry  jests  called 
forth  by  yours." 

"  I  confess  reluctantly  that  my  sunrise 
evoked  no  merry  jest  at  all."  Dear  Jones 
was  an  honest  man,  and  would  scorn  to  in 
vent  a  merry  jest  on  the  spur  of  the  mo 
ment. 


(J6        TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

"  That's  where  my  sunrise  has  the  call," 
said  Uncle  Larry,  complacently. 

"What  was  the  merry  jest?"  was  Baby 
Yan  Eensselaer's  inquiry,  the  natural  result  of 
a  feminine  curiosity  thus  artistically  excited. 

"  Well,  here  it  is.  I  was  standing  aft,  near 
a  patriotic  American  and  a  wandering  Irish 
man,  and  the  patriotic  American  rashly  de 
clared  that  you  couldn't  see  a  sunrise  like  that 
anywhere  in  Europe,  and  this  gave  the  Irish 
man  his  chance,  and  he  said,  '  Sure  ye  don't 
have  'm  here  till  we're  through  with  'em  over 
there.' " 

"  It  is  true,"  said  Dear  Jones,  thoughtfully, 
"that  they  do  have  some  things  over  there 
better  than  we  do ;  for  instance,  umbrellas." 

"  And  gowns,"  added  the  Duchess. 

"And  antiquities" — this  was  Uncle  Larry's 
contribution. 

"  And  we  do  have  some  things  so  much 
better  in  America !"  protested  Baby  Van  Rens- 
selaer,  as  yet  uncorrupted  by  any  worship  of 
the  effete  monarchies  of  despotic  Europe. 
"  We  make  lots  of  things  a  great  deal  nicer 
than  you  can  get  them  in  Europe — especially 


THE    RIVAL   GHOSTS  97 

"  And  pretty  girls,"  added  Dear  Jones  ;  but 
he  did  not  look  at  her. 

"  And  spooks,"  remarked  Uncle  Larry,  casu 
ally. 

"  Spooks  ?"  queried  the  Duchess. 

"  Spooks.  I  maintain  the  word.  Ghost,  if 
you  like  that  better,  or  spectres.  We  turn  out 
the  best  quality  of  spook — " 

"  You  forget  the  lovely  ghost  stories  about 
the  Rhine  and  the  Black  Forest,"  interrupted 
Miss  Yan  Rensselaer,  with  feminine  inconsist 
ency. 

"  I  remember  the  Rhine  and  the  Black 
Forest  and  all  the  other  haunts  of  elves  and 
fairies  and  hobgoblins ;  but  for  good,  honest 
spooks  there  is  no  place  like  home.  And 
what  differentiates  our  spook — spiritus  Ameri- 
canus — from  the  ordinary  ghost  of  literature 
is  that  it  responds  to  the  American  sense  of 
humor.  Take  Irving's  stories,  for  example. 
The  '  Headless  Horseman '  —  that's  a  comic 
ghost  story.  And  Rip  Yan  Winkle — consider 
what  humor,  and  what  good  humor,  there  is 
in  the  telling  of  his  meeting  with  the  goblin 
crew  of  Hendrik  Hudson's  men !  A  still  bet 
ter  example  of  this  American  way  of  dealing 


TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

with  legend  and  mystery  is  the  marvellous 
tale  of  the  rival  ghosts." 

"  The  rival  ghosts !"  queried  the  Duchess  and 
Baby  Van  Eensselaer  together.  "  Who  were 
they?" 

"Didn't  I  ever  tell  you  about  them?"  an 
swered  Uncle  Larry,  a  gleam  of  approaching 
joy  flashing  from  his  eye. 

"  Since  he  is  bound  to  tell  us  sooner  or  later, 
we'd  better  be  resigned  and  hear  it  now,"  said 
Dear  Jones. 

"  If  you  are  not  more  eager,  I  won't  tell  it 
at  all." 

"Oh,  do,  Uncle  Larry  !  you  know  I  just 
dote  on  ghost  stories,"  pleaded  Baby  Van 
Eensselaer, 

"  Once  upon  a  time,"  began  Uncle  Larry  — 
"in  fact,  a  very  few  years  ago — there  lived 
in  the  thriving  town  of  New  York  a  young 
American  called  Duncan — Eliphalet  Duncan. 
Like  his  name,  he  was  half  Yankee  and  half 
Scotch,  and  naturally  he  was  a  lawyer,  and 
had  come  to  New  York  to  make  his  way. 
His  father  was  a  Scotchman  who  had  come 
over  and  settled  in  Boston  and  married  a 
Salem  girl.  When  Eliphalet  Duncan  was 


THE    RIVAL    GHOSTS  99 

about  twenty  ho  lost  both  of  his  parents. 
His  father  left  him  enough  money  to  give 
him  a  start,  and  a  strong  feeling  of  pride  in 
his  Scotch  birth ;  you  see  there  was  a  title  in 
the  family  in  Scotland,  and  although  Eliph- 
alet's  father  was  the  younger  son  of  a  young 
er  son,  yet  he  always  remembered,  and  always 
bade  his  only  son  to  remember,  that  this  an 
cestry  was  noble.  His  mother  left  him  her 
full  share  of  Yankee  grit  and  a  little  old  house 
in  Salem  which  had  belonged  to  her  family 
for  more  than  two  hundred  years.  She  was  a 
Hitchcock,  and  the  Hitch  cocks  had  been  set 
tled  in  Salem  since  the  year  1.  It  was  a  great- 
great-grandfather  of  Mr.  Eliphalet  Hitchcock 
who  was  foremost  in  the  time  of  the  Salem 
witchcraft  craze.  And  this  little  old  house 
which  she  left  to  my  friend  Eliphalet  Duncan 
was  haunted." 

"  By  the  ghost  of  one  of  the  witches,  of 
course  ?"  interrupted  Dear  Jones. 

"  Now  how  could  it  be  the  ghost  of  a  witch, 
since  the  witches  were  all  burned  at  the  stake  ? 
You  never  heard  of  anybody  who  was  burned 
having  a  ghost,  did  you  ?"  asked  Uncle  Larry. 

"  That's  an  argument  in  favor  of  cremation, 


100  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

at  any  rate,"  replied  Dear  Jones,  evading  the 
direct  question. 

"  It  is,  if  you  don't  like  ghosts,  I  do,"  said 
Baby  Van  Rensselaer. 

"  And  so  do  I,"  added  Uncle  Larry.  "  I  love 
a  ghost  as  dearly  as  an  Englishman  loves  a 
lord." 

"  Go  on  with  your  story,"  said  the  Duchess, 
majestically  overruling  all  extraneous  discus 
sion. 

"  This  little  old  house  at  Salem  was  haunt 
ed,"  resumed  Uncle  Larry.  "  And  by  a  very 
distinguished  ghost— or  at  least  by  a  ghost 
with  very  remarkable  attributes." 

"What  was  he  like?"  asked  Baby  Van 
Rensselaer,  with  a  premonitory  shiver  of  an 
ticipatory  delight. 

"  It  had  a  lot  of  peculiarities.  In  the  first 
place,  it  never  appeared  to  the  master  of  the 
house.  Mostly  it  confined  its  visitations  to 
unwelcome  guests.  In  the  course  of  the  last 
hundred  years  it  had  frightened  away  four 
successive  mothers-in-law,  while  never  intrud 
ing  on  the  head  of  the  household." 

"  I  guess  that  ghost  had  been  one  of  the 
boys  when  he  was  alive  and  in  the  flesh." 


THE    RIVAL    GHOSTS  101 

This  was  Dear  Jones's  contribution  to  the  tell 
ing  of  the  tale. 

"In  the  second  place,"  continued  Uncle 
Larry,  "  it  never  frightened  anybody  the  first 
time  it  appeared.  Only  on  the  second  visit 
were  the  ghost  -  seers  scared ;  but  then  they 
were  scared  enough  for  twice,  and  they  rarely 
mustered  up  courage  enough  to  risk  a  third  in 
terview.  One  of  the  most  curious  character 
istics  of  this  well-meaning  spook  was  that  it 
had  no  face — or  at  least  that  nobody  ever  saw 
its  face." 

"  Perhaps  he  kept  his  countenance  veiled  ?" 
queried  the  Duchess,  who  was  beginning  to 
remember  that  she  never  did  like  ghost  stories. 

"That  was  what  I  was  never  able  to  find 
out.  I  have  asked  several  people  who  saw  the 
ghost,  and  none  of  them  could  tell  me  any 
thing  about  its  face,  and  yet  while  in  its  pres 
ence  they  never  noticed  its  features,  and  never 
remarked  on  their  absence  or  concealment.  It 
was  only  afterwards  when  they  tried  to  recall 
calmly  all  the  circumstances  of  meeting  with 
the  mysterious  stranger  that  they  became 
aware  that  they  had  not  seen  its  face.  And 
they  could  not  say  whether  the  features  were 


102  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

covered,  or  whether  they  were  wanting,  or 
what  the  trouble  was.  They  knew  only  that 
the  face  was  never  seen.  And  no  matter  how 
often  they  might  see  it,  they  never  fathomed 
this  mystery.  To  this  day  nobody  knows 
whether  the  ghost  which  used  to  haunt  the 
little  old  house  in  Salem  had  a  face,  or  what 
manner  of  face  it  had." 

"  How  awfully  weird !"  said  Baby  Yan 
Eensselaer.  "And  why  did  the  ghost  go 
away  ?" 

"I  haven't  said  it  went  away,"  answered 
Uncle  Larry,  with  much  dignity, 

"  But  you  said  it  used  to  haunt  the  little  old 
house  at  Salem,  so  I  supposed  it  had  moved. 
Didn't  it  ?"  the  young  lady  asked, 

"  You  shall  be  told  in  due  time.  Eliphalet 
Duncan  used  to  spend  most  of  his  summer  va 
cations  at  Salem,  and  the  ghost  never  bothered 
him  at  all,  for  he  was  the  master  of  the  house 
— much  to  his  disgust,  too,  because  he  wanted 
to  see  for  himself  the  mysterious  tenant  at  will 
of  his  property.  But  he  never  saw  it,  never. 
He  arranged  with  friends  to  call  him  when 
ever  it  might  appear,  and  he  slept  in  the  next 
room  with  the  door  open  ;  and  yet  when  their 


THE    KIVAL    GHOSTS  103 

frightened  cries  waked  him  the  ghost  was 
gone,  and  his  only  reward  Avas  to  hear  re 
proachful  sighs  as  soon  as  he  went  back  to 
bed.  You  see,  the  ghost  thought  it  was  not 
fair  of  Eliphalet  to  seek  an  introduction  which 
was  plainly  unwelcome." 

Dear  Jones  interrupted  the  story-teller  by 
getting  up  and  tucking  a  heavy  rug  more 
snugly  around  Baby  Van  Kensselaer's  feet,  for 
the  sky  was  now  overcast  and  gray,  and  the 
air  was  damp  and  penetrating. 

"  One  fine  spring  morning,"  pursued  Uncle 
Larry,  "  Eliphalet  Duncan  received  great  news. 
I  told  you  that  there  was  a  title  in  the  family 
in  Scotland,  and  that  Eliphalet's  father  was 
the  younger  son  of  a  younger  son.  Well,  it 
happened  that  all  Eliphalet's  father's  brothers 
and  uncles  had  died  off  without  male  issue  ex 
cept  the  eldest  son  of  the  eldest  son,  and  he,  of 
course,  bore  the  title,  and  was  Baron  Duncan 
of  Duncan.  Now  the  great  news  that  Elipha 
let  Duncan  received  in  New  York  one  fine 
spring  morning  was  that  Baron  Duncan  and 
his  only  son  had  been  yachting  in  the  Hebri 
des,  and  they  had  been  caught  in  a  black 
squall,  and  they  were  both  dead.  So  my 


104  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

friend  Eliphalet  Duncan  inherited  the  title 
and  the  estates." 

"  How  romantic !"  said  the  Duchess.  "  So 
he  was  a  baron !" 

"Well,"  answered  Uncle  Larry, j" he  was  a 
baron  if  he  chose.  But  he  didn't  choose." \ 

"More  fool  he!"  said  Dear  Jones,  senten- 
tiously. 

"  Well,"  answered  Uncle  Larry,  "  I'm  not 
so  sure  of  that.  \  You  see,  Eliphalet  Duncan 
was  half  Scotch  and  half  Yankee,  and  he  had 
two  eyes  to  the  main  chance.  He  held  his 
tongue  about  his  windfall  of  luck  until  he 
could  find  out  whether  the  Scotch  estates 
were  enough  to  keep  up  the  Scotch  title.  He 
soon  discovered  that  they  were  not,  and  that 
the  late  Lord  Duncan,  having  married  money, 
kept  up  such  state  as  he  could  out  of  the  rev 
enues  of  the  dowry  of  Lady  Duncan.  And 
Eliphalet,  he  decided  that  he  would  rather  be 
a  well-fed  lawyer  in  New  York,  living  com 
fortably  on  his  practice,  than  a  starving  lord 
in  Scotland,  living  scantily  on  his  title." 

"  But  he  kept  his  title  ?"  asked  the  Duchess. 

"Well,"  answered  Uncle  Larry,  "he  kept 
it  quiet.  I  knew  it,  and  a  friend  or  two  more. 


THE   KIVAL   GHOSTS  105 

But  Eliphalet  was  a  sight  too  smart  to  put 
'Baron  Duncan  of  Duncan,  Attorney  and 
Counsellor  at  La\v,'  on  his  shingle." 

"What  has  all  this  got  to  do  with  your 
ghost?"  asked  Dear  Jones, pertinently. 

"  Nothing  with  that  ghost,  but  a  good  deal 
with  another  ghost.  Eliphalet  was  very 
learned  in  spirit  lore— perhaps  because  he 
owned  the  haunted  house  at  Salem,  perhaps 
because  he  was  a  Scotchman  by  descent.  At 
all  events,  he  had  made  a  special  study  of  the 
wraiths  and  wrhite  ladies  and  banshees  and 
bogies  of  all  kinds  whose  sayings  and  doings 
and  warnings  are  recorded  in  the  annals  of 
the  Scottish  nobility.  In  fact,  he  was  ac 
quainted  with  the  habits  of  every  reputable 
spook  in  the  Scotch  peerage.  And  he  knew 
that  there  was  a  Duncan  ghost  attached  to 
the  person  of  the  holder  of  the  title  of  Baron 
Duncan  of  Duncan."  1 

"  So,  besides  being  the  owner  of  a  haunted 
house  in  Salem,  he  was  also  a  haunted  man 
in  Scotland?"  asked  Baby  Van  Eensselaer. 

"Just  so.  But  the  Scotch  ghost  was  not 
unpleasant,  like  the  Salem  ghost,  although  it 
had  one  peculiarity  in  common  with  its  trans- 


106       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

atlantic  fellow-spook.  It  never  appeared  to 
the  holder  of  the  title,  just  as  the  other  never 
was  visible  to  the  owner  of  the  house.  In 
fact,  the  Duncan  ghost  was  never  seen  at  all. 
It  was  a  guardian  angel  only.  Its  sole  duty 
was  to  be  in  personal  attendance  on  Baron 
Duncan  of  Duncan,  and  to  warn  him  of  im 
pending  evil  The  traditions  of  the  house 
told  that  the  Barons  of  Duncan  had  again  and 
again  felt  a  premonition  of  ill  fortune.  Some 
of  them  had  yielded  and  withdrawn  from  the 
venture  they  had  undertaken,  and  it  had 
failed  dismally.  Some  had  been  obstinate, 
and  had  hardened  their  hearts,  and  had  gone 
on  reckless  to  defeat  and  to  death.  In  no 
case  had  a  Lord  Duncan  been  exposed  to  peril 
without  fair  warning."  j 

"  Then  how  came  it  that  the  father  and  son 
were  lost  in  the  yacht  off  the  Hebrides  ?"  asked 
Dear  Jones. 

"  Because  they  were  too  enlightened  to 
yield  to  superstition.  There  is  extant  now  a 
letter  of  Lord  Duncan,  written  to  his  wife  a 
few  minutes  before  he  and  his  son  set  sail,  in 
which  he  tells  her  how  hard  he  has  had  to 
struggle  with  an  almost  overmastering  desire 


THE    RIVAL    GHOSTS  107 

to  give  up  the  trip.  Had  he  obeyed  the 
friendly  warning  of  the  family  ghost,  the 
letter  would  have  been  spared  a  journey 
across  the  Atlantic." 

"  Did  the  ghost  leave  Scotland  for  America 
as  soon  as  the  old  baron  died?"  asked  Baby 
Yan  Rensselaer,  with  much  interest. 

"  How  did  he  come  over,"  queried  Dear 
Jones  —  "  in  the  steerage,  or  as  a  cabin  pas 
senger  ?" 

"I  don't  know,"  answered  Uncle  Larry  ? 
calmly,  "and  Eliphalet  didn't  know.  Forjas 
he  was  in  no  danger,  and  stood  in  no  need 
of  warning,  he  couldn't  tell  whether  the  ghost 
was  on  duty  OF  not.  Of  course  he  was  on  the 
watch  for  it  all  the  time.  But  he  never  got 
any  proof  of  its  presence  until  he  went  down 
to  the  little  old  house  of  Salem,  just  before 
the  Fourth  of  July.  He  took  a  friend  down 
with  him — a  young  fellow  who  had  been  in 
the  regular  army  since  the  day  Fort  Sumter 
was  fired  on,  and  who  thought  that  after  four 
years  of  the  little  unpleasantness  down  South, 
including  six  months  in  Libby,  and  after  ten 
years  of  fighting  the  bad  Indians  on  the  plains, 
hef wasn't  likely  to  be  much  frightened  by  a 


108       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

ghost.  Well,  Eliphalet  and  the  officer  sat  out 
on  the  porch  all  the  evening  smoking  and 
talking  over  points  in  military  law.  A  little 
after  twelve  o'clock,  just  as  they  began  to 
think  it  was  about  time  to  turn  in,  they  heard 
the  most  ghastly  noise  in  the  house.  It  wasn't 
a  shriek,  or  a  howl,  or  a  yell,  or  anything  they 
could  put  a  name  to.  It  was  an  undetermin- 
ate,  inexplicable  shiver  and  shudder  of  sound, 
which  went  wailing  out  of  the  window.  The 
officer  had  been  at  Cold  Harbor,  but  he  felt 
himself  getting  colder  this  time.  Eliphalet 
knew  it  was  the  ghost  who  haunted  the  house. 
As  this  weird  sound  died  away,  it  was  followed 
by  another,  sharp,  short,  blood-curdling  in  its 
intensity.  Something  in  this  cry  seemed  fa 
miliar  to  Eliphalet,  and  he  felt  sure  that  it  pro 
ceeded  from  the  family  ghost,  the  warning 
wraith  of  the  Duncans." 

•— -  — 

u  Do  I  understand  you  to  intimate  that  both 
ghosts  were  there  together?"  inquired  the 
Duchess,  anxiously. 

"  Both  of  them  were  there,"  answered  Uncle 
Larry.  "  You  see,  one  of  them  belonged  to 
the  house,  and  had  to  be  there  all  the  time, 
and  the  other  was  attached  to  the  person  of 


THE    RIVAL    GHOSTS  109 

Baron  Duncan,  and  had  to  follow  him  there ; 
wherever  he  was,  there  was  that  ghost  also. 
But  Eliphalet,  he  had  scarcely  time  to  think 
this  out  when  he  heard  both  sounds  again,  not 
one  after  another,  but  both  together,  and  some 
thing  told  him— some  sort  of  an  instinct  he 
had — that  those  two  ghosts  didn't  agree,  didn't 
get  on  together,  didn't  exactly  hit  it  off ;  in 
jact,  that  they  were  quarrelling." 

"  Quarrelling  ghosts  1  Well,  I  never !"  was 
Baby  Yan  Eensselaer's  remark. 

"  It  is  a  blessed  thing  to  see  ghosts  dwell 
together  in  unity,"  said  Dear  Jones. 

And  the  Duchess  added,  "  It  would  certain 
ly  be  setting  a  better  example." 

"  You  know,"  resumed  Uncle  Larry,  "  that 
two  waves  of  light  or  of  sound  may  interfere 
and  produce  darkness  or  silence.  So  it  was 
with  these  rival  spooks.  They  interfered,  but 
they  did  not  produce  silence  or  darkness.  On 
the  contrary,  as  soon  as  Eliphalet  and  the  offi 
cer  went  into  the  house,  there  began  at  once  a 
series  of  spiritualistic  manifestations — a  regular 
dark  seance.  A  tambourine  was  played  upon, 
a  bell  was  rung,  and  a  naming  banjo  went  sing 
ing  around  the  room." 


110       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

"Where  did  they  get  the  banjo?"  asked 
Dear  Jones,  sceptically. 

"  I  don't  know.  Materialized  it,  maybe,  just 
as  they  did  the  tambourine.  You  don't  sup 
pose  a  quiet  New  York  lawyer  kept  a  stock  of 
musical  instruments  large  enough  to  fit  out  a 
strolling  minstrel  troupe  just  on  the  chance  of 
a  pair  of  ghosts  coming  to  give  him  a  surprise 
party,  do  you  ?  Every  spook  has  its  own  in 
strument  of  torture.  Angels  play  on  harps, 
I'm  informed,  and  spirits  delight  in  banjos  and 
tambourines.  These  spooks  of  Eliphalet  Dun 
can's  were  ghosts  with  all  modern  improve 
ments,  and  I  guess  they  were  capable  of  pro 
viding  their  own  musical  weapons.  At  all 
events,  they  had  them  there  in  the  little  old 
house  at  Salem  the  night  Eliphalet  and  his 
friend  came  down.  And  they  played  on  them, 
and  they  rang  the  bell,  and  they  rapped  here, 
there,  and  everywhere.  )  And  they  kept  it  up 
all  night." 

u  All  night  ?"  asked  the  awe-stricken  Duch 
ess. 

"  All  night  long,"  said  Uncle  Larry,  solemnly  ; 
"and  the  next  night  too.  Eliphalet  did  not 
get  a  wink  of  sleep,  neither  did  his  friend.  On 


THE    RIVAL    GHOSTS  111 

the  second  night  the  house  ghost  was  seen  by 
the  officer;  on  the  third  night  it  showed  it 
self  again ;  and  the  next  morning  the  officer 
packed  his  gripsack  and  took  the  first  train  to 
Boston.  He  was  a  New-Yorker,  but  he  said 
he'd  sooner  go  to  Boston  than  see  that  ghost 
again.  Eliphalet  wasn't  scared  at  all,  part 
ly  because  he  never  saw  either  the  domicili 
ary  or  the  titular  spook,  and  partly  because 
he  felt  himself  on  friendly  terms  with  the 
spirit  world,  and  didn't  scare  easily.  But  after 
losing  three  nights'  sleep  and  the  society  of 
his  friend,  he  began  to  be  a  little  impatient, 
and  to  think  that  the  thing  had  gone  far 
enough.  You  see,  while  in  a  way  he  was 
fond  of  ghosts,  yet  he  liked  them  best  one  at 
a  time.  Two  ghosts  were  one  too  many.  He 
wasn't  bent  on  making  a  collection  of  spooks. 
He  and  one  ghost  were  company,  but  he  and 
two  ghosts  were  a  crowd." 

"  What  did  he  do  ?"  asked  Baby  Yan  Kens- 
selaer. 

"  "Well,  he  couldn't  do  anything.  He  waited 
awhile,  hoping  they  would  get  tired ;  but  he 
got  tired  out  first.  You  see,  it  comes  natural 
to  a  spook  to  sleep  in  the  daytime,  but  a  man 


112  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

wants  to  sleep  nights,  and  they  wouldn't  let 
him  sleep  nights.  They  kept  on  wrangling 
and  quarrelling  incessantly ;  they  manifested 
and  they  dark-seanced  as  regularly  as  the  old 
clock  on  the  stairs  struck  twelve ;  they  rapped 
and  they  rang  bells  and  they  banged  the  tam 
bourine  and  they  threw  the  flaming  banjo 
about  the  house,  and,  worse  than  all,  they 
swore." 

"  I  did  not  know  that  spirits  were  addicted 
to  bad  language,"  said  the  Duchess. 

"  How  did  he  know  they  were  swear 
ing?  Could  he  hear  them?"  asked  Dear 
Jones. 

"  That  was  just  it,"  responded  Uncle  Larry  ; 
"  he  could  not  hear  them — at  least,  not  dis 
tinctly.  There  were  inarticulate  murmurs  and 
stifled  rumblings.  But  the  impression  pro 
duced  on  him  was  that  they  were  swearing. 
If  they  had  only  sworn  right  out,  he  would 
not  have  minded  it  so  much,  because  he  would 
have  known  the  worst.  But  the  feeling  that 
the  air  was  full  of  suppressed  profanity  was 
very  wearing,  and  after  standing  it  for  a  week 
he  gave  up  in  disgust  and  went  to  the  White 
Mountains." 


THE    RIVAL    GHOSTS  113 

"  Leaving  them  to  fight  it  out,  I  suppose," 
interjected  Baby  Yan  Kensselaer. 

"  Not  at  all,"  explained  Uncle  Larry.  "  They 
could  not  quarrel  unless  he  was  present.  You 
see,  he  could  not  leave  the  titular  ghost  behind 
him,  and  the  domiciliary  ghost  could  not  leave 
the  house.  "When  he  went  away  he  took  the 
family  ghost  with  him,  leaving  the  house  ghost 
behind.  Now  spooks  can't  quarrel  when  the}7 
are  a  hundred  miles  apart  any  more  than  men 
can." 

"And  what  happened  afterwards?"  asked 
Baby  Yan  Eensselaer,  with  a  pretty  impatience. 

"  A  most  marvellous  thing  happened.  Eliph- 
alet  Duncan  went  to  the  White  Mountains, 
and  in  the  car  of  the  railroad  that  runs  to  the 
top  of  Mount  Washington  he  met  a  classmate 
whom  he  had  not  seen  for  years,  and  this  class 
mate  introduced  Duncan  to  his  sister,  and  this 
sister  was  a  remarkably  pretty  girl,  and  Dun 
can  fell  in  love  with  her  at  first  sight,  and  by 
the  time  he  got  to  the  top  of  Mount  Washing 
ton  he  was  so  deep  in  love  that  he  began  to 
consider  his  own  unworthiness,  and  to  wonder 
whether  she  might  ever  be  induced  to  care 
for  him  a  little — ever  so  little." 


114       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

"  I  don't  think  that  is  so  marvellous  a  thing," 
said  Dear  Jones,  glancing  at  Baby  Yan  Rens- 
selaer. 

"Who  was  she?"  asked  the  Duchess,  who 
had  once  lived  in  Philadelphia. 

"  She  was  Miss  Kitty  Sutton,  of  San  Fran 
cisco,  and  she  was  a  daughter  of  old  Judge 
Sutton,  of  the  firm  of  Pixley  &  Sutton." 

"A  very  respectable  family,"  assented  the 
Duchess. 

"  I  hope  she  wasn't  a  daughter  of  that  loud 
and  vulgar  old  Mrs.  Sutton  whom  I  met  at 
Saratoga  one  summer  four  or  five  years 
ago  ?"  said  Dear  Jones. 

"  Probably  she  was,"  Uncle  Larry  responded. 

"  She  was  a  horrid  old  woman.  The  boys 
usedjbp  call  her  Mother  Gorgon." 

"  The  pretty  Kitty  Sutton  with  whom  Eliph- 
alet  Duncan  had  fallen  in  love  was  the  dauo-h- 

o 

ter  of  Mother  Gorgon.  But  he  never  saw  the 
mother,  who  was  in  Frisco,  or  Los  Angeles, 
or  Santa  Fe,  or  somewhere  out  West,  and  he 
saw  a  great  deal  of  the  daughter,  who  was  up 
in  the  White  Mountains.  She  was  travelling 
with  her  brother  and  his  wife,  and  as  they 
journeyed  from  hotel  to  hotel  Duncan  went 


THE    RIVAL    GHOSTS  115 

with  them,  and  filled  out  the  quartette.  Be 
fore  the  end  of  the  summer  he  began  to  think 
about  proposing.  Of  course  he  had  lots  of 
chances,  going  on  excursions  as  they  were 
every  day.  He  made  up  his  mind  to  seize  the 
first  opportunity,  and  that  very  evening  he 
took  her  out  for  a  moonlight  row  on  Lake 
Winipiseogee.  As  he  handed  her  into  the 
boat  he  resolved  to  do  it,  and  he  had  a  glim 
mer  of  a  suspicion  that  she  knew  he  was  going 
_tojdo  it,  too." 

"  Girls,"  said  Dear  Jones,  "  never  go  out 
in  a  row-boat  at  night  with  a  young  man  un 
less  you  mean  to  accept  him." 

"  Sometimes  it's  best  to  refuse  him,  and 
get  it  over  once  for  all,"  said  Baby  Yan  Kens- 
selaer,  impersonally. 

"  As  Eliphalet  took  the  oars  he  felt  a  sudden 
chill.  He  tried  to  shake  it  off,  but  in  vain. 
He  began  to  have  a  growing  consciousness  of 
impending  evil.  Before  he  had  taken  ten 
strokes — and  he  was  a  swift  oarsman — he  was 
aware  of  a  mysterious  presence  between  him 
and  Miss  Button." 

— • 

"  Was  it  the  guardian-angel  ghost  warning 
him  off  the  match?"  interrupted  Dear  Jones. 


116  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

"  That's  just  what  it  was,"  said  Uncle  Lar 
ry.  ["  And  he  yielded  to  it,  and  kept  his  peace, 
and  rowed  Miss  Button  back  to  the  hotel  with 
his  proposal  unspoken."  j 

"  More  fool  he,"  said  Dear  Jones.  "  It  will 
take  more  than  one  ghost  to  keep  me  from 
proposing  when  my  mind  is  made  up."  And 
he  looked  at  Baby  Van  Rensselaer. 

I"  The  next  morning,"  continued  Uncle  Larry, 
"  Eliphalet  overslept  himself,  and  when  he  went 
down  to  a  late  breakfast  he  found  that  the 
Buttons  had  gone  to  New  York  by  the  morning 
train.  He  wanted  to  follow  them  at  once,  and 
again  he  felt  the  mysterious  presence  over 
powering  his  will.  He  struggled  two  days, 
and  at  last  he  roused  himself  to  do  what  he 
wanted  in  spite  of  the  spook.  When  he  arrived 
in  New  York  it  was  late  in  the  evening.  He 
dressed  himself  hastily,  and  went  to  the  hotel 
where  the  Buttons  were,  in  the  hope  of  seeing 
at  least  her  brother.  The  guardian  angel  fought 
every  inch  of  the  walk  with  him,  until  he  began 
to  wonder  whether,  if  Miss  Button  were  to  take 
him,  the  spook  would  forbid  the  banns.  At 
the  hotel  he  saw  no  one  that  night,  and  he 
went  home  determined  to  call  as  early  as  he 


THE    RIVAL    GHOSTS  117 

could  the  next  afternoon,  and  make  an  end  of 
it.  When  he  left  his  office  about  two  o'clock 
the  next  day  to  learn  his  fate,  he  had  not 
walked  five  blocks  before  he  discovered  that 
the  wraith  of  the  Duncans  had  withdrawn  his 
opposition  to  the  suit.  There  was  no  feeling 
of  impending  evil,  no  resistance,  no  struggle, 
no  consciousness  of  an  opposing  presence. 
Eliphalet  was  greatly  encouraged.  He  walked 
briskly  to  the  hotel ;  he  found  Miss  Sutton 
alone.  He  asked  her  the  question,  and  got  his 
janswer." 

"  She  accepted  him,  of  course  ?"  said  Baby 
Yan  Rensselaer. 

"Of  course,"  said  Uncle  Larry.  "And  while 
they  were  in  the  first  flush  of  joy,  swapping 
confidences  and  confessions,  her  brother  came 
into  the  parlor  with  an  expression  of  pain  on 
his  face  and  a  telegram  in  his  hand.  The  for 
mer  was  caused  by  the  latter,  which  was  from 
Frisco,  and  which  announced  the  sudden  death 
of  Mrs.  Sutton,  their  mother." 

"  And  that  was  why  the  ghost  no  longer 
opposed  the  match  ?"  questioned  Dear  Jones. 

"  Exactly,  j  You  see,  the  family  ghost  knew 
that  Mother  Gorgon  was  an  awful  obstacle  to 


118  TALES    OF    FANTASY   AND    FACT 

Duncan's  happiness,  so  it  warned  him.  But 
the  moment  the  obstacle  was  removed,  it  gave 
its  consent  at  once."! 

The  fog  was  lowering  its  thick,  damp  curtain, 
and  it  was  beginning  to  be  difficult  to  see  from 
one  end  of  the  boat  to  the  other.  Dear  Jones 
tightened  the  rug  which  enwrapped  Baby  Yan 
Rensselaer,  and  then  withdrew  again  into  his 
own  substantial  coverings. 

Uncle  Larry  paused  in  his  story  long  enough 
to  light  another  of  the  tiny  cigars  he  always 
smoked. 

"  I  infer  that  Lord  Duncan  " — the  Duchess 
was  scrupulous  in  the  bestowal  of  titles — "  saw 
no  more  of  the  ghosts  after  he  was  married." 

"  He  never  saw  them  at  all,  at  any  time, 
either  before  or  since.  But  they  came  very 
near  breaking  off  the  match,  and  thus  breaking 
two  young  hearts." 

"  You  don't  mean  to  say  that  they  knew  any 
just  cause  or  impediment  why  they  should  not 
forever  after  hold  their  peace?"  asked  Dear 
Jones. 

"  How  could  a  ghost,  or  even  two  ghosts, 
keep  a  girl  from  marrying  the  man  she  loved  ?" 
This  was  Baby  Yan  Eensselaer's  question. 


THE    RIVAL    GHOSTS  119 

"It  seems  curious,  doesn't  it?"  and  Uncle 
Larry  tried  to  warm  himself  by  two  or  three 
sharp  pulls  at  his  fiery  little  cigar.  "  And  the 
circumstances  are  quite  as  curious  as  the  fact 
itself.  You  see J  Miss  Button  wouldn't  be  mar 
ried  for  a  year  after  her  mother's  death,  so  she 
and  Duncan  had  lots  of  time  to  tell  each  oth 
er  all  they  knew.  Eliphalet  got  to  know  a 
good  deal  about  the  girls  she  went  to  school 
with ;  and  Kitty  soon  learned  all  about  his 
family.  He  didn't  tell  her  about  the  title  for 
a  long  time,  as  he  wasn't  one  to  brag.  But  he 
described  to  her  the  little  old  house  at  Salem. 
J~And  one  evening  towards  the  end  of  the  sum- 
^mer,  the  wedding-day  having  been  appointed 
for  early  in  September,  she  told  him  that  she 
didn't  want  a  bridal  tour  at  all;  she  just  wanted 
to  go  down  to  the  little  old  house  at  Salem  to 
spend  her  honeymoon  in  peace  and  quiet,  with 
nothing  to  do  and  nobody  to  bother  them. 
Well,  Eliphalet  jumped  at  the  suggestion:  it 
suited  him  down  to  the  ground.  All  of  a  sud 
den  he  remembered  the  spooks,  and  it  knocked 
him  all  of  a  heap.  He  had  told  her  about  the 
Duncan  banshee,  and  the  idea  of  having  an 
ancestral  ghost  in  personal  attendance  on  her 


120        TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

husband  tickled  her  immensely.  But  he  had 
never  said  anything  about  the  ghost  which 
haunted  the  little  old  house  at  Salem.  He 
knew  she  would  be  frightened  out  of  her  wits 
if  the  house  ghost  revealed  itself  to  her,  and 
he  saw  at  once  that  it  would  be  impossible  to 
go  to  Salem  on  their  wedding  trip.  So  he  told 
her  all  about  it,  and  how  whenever  he  went  to 
Salem  the  two  ghosts  interfered,  and  gave 
dark  seances  and  manifested  and  materialized 
and  made  the  place  absolutely  impossible. 
Kitty  listened  in  silence,  and  Eliphalet  thought 
she  had  changed  her  mind.  But  she  hadn't 
done  anything  of  the  kind." 

"  Just  like  a  man— to  think  she  was  going 
to,"  remarked  Baby  Yan  Rensselaer. 

"She  just  told  him  she  could  not  bear 
ghosts  herself,  but  she  would  not  marry  a 
man  who  was  afraid  of  them." 

"Just  like  a  girl— to  be  so  inconsistent," 
remarked  Dear  Jones. 

Uncle  Larry's  tiny  cigar  had  long  been  ex 
tinct.  He  lighted  a  new  one,  and  continued  : 
"  Eliphalet  protested  in  vain.  Kitty  said  her 
mind  was  made  up.  \  She  was  determined  to 
pass  her  honeymoon  in  the  little  old  house  at 


THE    RIVAL   GHOSTS  121 

Salem,  and  she  was  equally  determined  not  to 
go  there  as  long  as  there  were  any  ghosts  there. 
Until  he  could  assure  her  that  the  spectral 
tenant  had  received  notice  to  quit,  and  that 
there  was  no  danger  of  manifestations  and 
materializing,  she  refused  to  be  married  at  all. 
She  did  not  intend  to  have  her  honeymoon 
interrupted  by  two  wrangling  ghosts,  and  the 
wedding  could  be  postponed  until  he  had 
made  ready  the  house  for  her." 

"She  was  an  unreasonable  young  woman," 
said  the  Duchess. 

"  Well,  that's  what  Eliphalet  thought,  much 
as  he  was  in  love  with  her.  And  he  believed 
he  could  talk  her  out  of  her  determination. 
But  he  couldn't.  She  was  set.  And  when  a 
girl  is  set,  there's  nothing  to  do  but  to  yield 
to  the  inevitable.  And  that's  just  what  Eliph 
alet  did.  \He  saw  he  would  either  have  to 
give  her  up  or  to  get  the  ghosts  out ;  and  as 
he  loved  her  and  did  not  care  for  the  ghosts, 
he  resolved  to  tackle  the  ghosts.  He  had 
clear  grit,  Eliphalet  had — he  was  half  Scotch 
and  half  Yankee,  and  neither  breed  turns  tail 
in  a  hurry.  So  he  made  his  plans  and  he 
went  down  to  Salem.  As  he  said  good-bye  to 


122       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

Kitty  he  had  an  impression  that  she  was  sorry 
she  had  made  him  go ;  but  she  kept  up  bravely, 
and  put  a  bold  face  on  it,  and  saw  him  off,  and 
went  home  and  cried  for  an  hour,  and  was 
perfectly  miserable  until  he  came  back  the 
next  day." 

"Did  he  succeed  in  driving  the  ghosts 
away?"  asked  Baby  Yan  Rensselaer,  with 
great  interest. 

"  That's  just  what  I'm  coming  to,"  said 
Uncle  Larry,  pausing  at  the  critical  moment, 
in  the  manner  of  the  trained  story-teller. 
"  You  see,  Eliphalet  had  got  a  rather  tough 
job,  and  he  would  gladly  have  had  an  exten 
sion  of  time  on  the  contract,  but  he  had  to 
choose  between  the  girl  and  the  ghosts,  and 
he  wanted  the  girl.  He  tried  to  invent  or  re 
member  some  short  and  easy  way  with  ghosts, 
but  he  couldn't.  He  wished  that  somebody 
had  invented  a  specific  for  spooks — something 
that  would  make  the  ghosts  come  out  of  the 
house  and  die  in  the  yard.  He  wondered  if 
he  could  not  tempt  the  ghosts  to  run  in  debt, 
so  that  he  might  get  the  sheriff  to  help  him. 
He  wondered  also  whether  the  ghosts  could 
not  be  overcome  with  strong  drink — a  dis- 


THE    RIVAL    GHOSTS  123 

sipated  spook,  a  spook  with  delirium  tremens, 
might  be  committed  to  the  inebriate  asylum. 
But  none  of  these  things  seemed  feasible." 

"  What  did  he  do  ?"  interrupted  Dear  Jones. 
"  The  learned  counsel  will  please  speak  to  the 
point." 

"  You  will  regret  this  unseemly  haste,"  said 
Uncle  Larry,  gravely,  "  when  you  know  what 
really  happened." 

"  What  was  it,  Uncle  Larry  ?"  asked  Baby 
Van  Kensselaer.  "  I'm  all  impatience." 

And  Uncle  Larry  proceeded  : 
["Eliphalet  went  down  to  the  little  old 
house  at  Salem,  and  as  soon  as  the  clock  struck 
twelve  the  rival  ghosts  began  wrangling  as 
before.  Raps  here,  there,  and  everywhere, 
ringing  bells,  banging  tambourines,  strumming 
banjos  sailing  about  the  room,  and  all  the 
other  manifestations  and  materializations  fol 
lowed  one  another  just  as  they  had  the  sum 
mer  before.  The  only  difference  Eliphalet 
could  detect  was  a  stronger  flavor  in  the 
spectral  profanity ;  and  this,  of  course,  was 
only  a  vague  impression,  for  he  did  not  ac 
tually  hear  a  single  word.  He  waited  awhile 
in  patience,  listening  and  watching.  Of  course 


124       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

he  never  saw  either  of  the  ghosts,  because 
neither  of  them  could  appear  to  him.  At  last 
he  got  his  dander  up,  and  he  thought  it  was 
about  time  to  interfere,  so  he  rapped  on  the 
table,  and  asked  for  silence.  As  soon  as  he  felt 
that  the  spooks  were  listening  to  him  he  ex 
plained  the  situation  to  them.  He  told  them 
he  was  in  love,  and  that  he  could  not  marry 
unless  they  vacated  the  house.  He  appealed 
to  them  as  old  friends,  and  he  laid  claim  to 
their  gratitude.  The  titular  ghost  had  been 
sheltered  by  the  Duncan  family  for  hundreds 
of  years,  and  the  domiciliary  ghost  had  had 
free  lodging  in  the  little  old  house  at  Salem  for 
nearly  two  centuries.  He  implored  them  to 
settle  their  differences,  and  to  get  him  out  of 
his  difficulty  at  once.  He  suggested  that  they 
had  better  fight  it  out  then  and  there,  and  see 
who  was  master.  He  had  brought  down  with 
him  all  needful  weapons.  And  he  pulled  out 
his  valise,  and  spread  on  the  table  a  pair  of 
navy  revolvers,  a  pair  of  shot-guns,  a  pair  of 
duelling-swords,  and  a  couple  of  bowie-knives. 
He  offered  to  serve  as  second  for  both  parties, 
and  to  give  the  word  when  to  begin.  He  also 
took  out  of  his  valise  a  pack  of  cards  and  a 


THE    EIVAL    GHOSTS  125 

bottle  of  poison,  telling  them  that  if  they 
wished  to  avoid  carnage  they  might  cut  the 
cards  to  see  which  one  should  take  the  poison. 
Then  he  waited  anxiously  for  their  reply. 
For  a  little  space  there  was  silence.  Then  he 
became  conscious  of  a  tremulous  shivering  in 
one  corner  of  the  room,  and  he  remembered 
that  he  had  heard  from  that  direction  what 
sounded  like  a  frightened  sigh  when  he  made 
the  first  suggestion  of  the  duel.  Something 
told  him  that  this  was  the  domiciliary  ghost, 
and  that  it  was  badly  scared.  Then  he  was 
impressed  by  a  certain  movement  in  the  op 
posite  corner  of  the  room,  as  though  the 
titular  ghost  were  drawing  himself  up  with 
offended  dignity.  Eliphalet  couldn't  exactly 
see  those  things,  because  he  never  saw  the 
ghosts,  but  he  felt  them.  After  a  silence  of 
nearly  a  minute  a  voice  came  from  the  corner 
where  the  family  ghost  stood-— a  voice  strong 
and  full,  but  trembling  slightly  with  sup 
pressed  passion.  And  this  voice  told  Eliphalet 
it  was  plain  enough  that  he  had  not  long  been 
the  head  of  the  Duncans,  and  that  he  had 
never  properly  considered  the  characteristics 
of  his  race  if  now  he  supposed  that  one  of  his 


126  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

blood  could  draw  his  sword  against  a  woman. 
Eliphalet  said  he  had  never  suggested  that  the 
Duncan  ghost  should  raise  his  hand  against  a 
woman,  and  all  he  wanted  was  that  the 
Duncan  ghost  should  fight  the  other  ghost. 
And  then  the  voice  told  Eliphalet  that  the 
other  ghost  was  a  woman." 

"What?"  said  Dear  Jones,  sitting  up  sud 
denly.  "  You  don't  mean  to  tell  me  that  the 
ghost  which  haunted  the  house  was  a  woman?" 

"  Those  were  the  very  words  Eliphalet  Dun 
can  used,"  said  Uncle  Larry ;  "  but  he  did  not 
need  to  wait  for  the  answer.  All  at  once  he 
recalled  the  traditions  about  the  domiciliary 
ghost,  and  he  knew  that  what  the  titular 
ghost  said  was  the  fact.  He  had  never  thought 
of  the  sex  of  a  spook,  but  there  was  no  doubt 
whatever  that  the  house  ghost  was  a  woman. 
No  sooner  was  this  firmly  fixed  in  Eliphalet's 
mind  than  he  saw  his  way  out  of  the  difficulty. 
The  ghosts  must  be  married ! — for  then  there 
would  be  no  more  interference,  no  more  quar 
relling,  no  more  manifestations  and  material 
izations,  no  more  dark  seances,  with  their  raps 
and  bells  and  tambourines  and  banjos.  At 
first  the  ghosts  would  not  hear  of  it.  The 


THE    RIVAL    GHOSTS  127 

voice  in  the  corner  declared  that  the  Duncan 
wraith  had  never  thought  of  matrimony.  But 
Eliphalet  argued  with  them,  and  pleaded  and 
pursuaded  and  coaxed,  and  dwelt  on  the  ad 
vantages  of  matrimony.  He  had  to  confess, 
of  course,  that  he  did  not  know  how  to  get  a 
clergyman  to  marry  them  ;  but  the  voice  from 
the  corner  gravely  told  him  that  there  need  be 
no  difficulty  in  regard  to  that,  as  there  was  no 
lack  of  spiritual  chaplains.  Then,  for  the  first 
time,  the  house  ghost  spoke,  a  low,  clear, 
gentle  voice,  and  with  a  quaint,  old-fashioned 
New  England  accent,  which  contrasted  sharp 
ly  with  the  broad  Scotch  speech  of  the  family 
ghost.  She  said  that  Eliphalet  Duncan  seemed 
to  have  forgotten  that  she  was  married.  But 
this  did  not  upset  Eliphalet  at  all ;  he  remem 
bered  the  whole  case  clearly,  and  he  told  her 
she  was  not  a  married  ghost,  but  a  widow, 
since  her  husband  had  been  hanged  for  murder 
ing  her.  Then  the  Duncan  ghost  drew  atten 
tion  to  the  great  disparity  in  their  ages,  say 
ing  that  he  was  nearly  four  hundred  and  fifty 
years  old,  while  she  was  barely  two  hundred. 
But  Eliphalet  had  not  talked  to  juries  for 
nothing ;  he  just  buckled  to,  and  coaxed  those 


128  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

ghosts  into  matrimony.  Afterwards  he  came 
to  the  conclusion  that  they  were  willing  to  be 
coaxed,  but  at  the  time  he  thought  he  had 
pretty  hard  work  to  convince  them  of  the  ad 
vantages  of  the  plan." 

"  Did  he  succeed  ?"  asked  Baby  Yan  Eens- 
selaer,  with  a  woman's  interest  in  matrimony. 

"  He  did,"  said  Uncle  Larry.  "  He  talked 
the  wraith  of  the  Duncans  and  the  spectre  of 
the  little  old  house  at  Salem  into  a  matrimoni 
al  engagement.  And  from  the  time  they  were 
engaged  he  had  no  more  trouble  with  them. 
They  \vere  rival  ghosts  no  longer.  They  were 
married  by  their  spiritual  chaplain  the  very 
same  clay  that  Eliphalet  Duncan  met  Kitty 
Sutton  in  front  of  the  railing  of  Grace  Church. 
The  ghostly  bride  and  bridegroom  went  away 
at  once  on  their  bridal  tour,  and  Lord  and 
Lady  Duncan  went  down  to  the  little  old 
house  at  Salem  to  pass  their  honeymoon." 

Uncle  Larry  stopped.  His  tiny  cigar  was 
out  again.  The  tale  of  the  rival  ghosts  wras 
told.  A  solemn  silence  fell  on  the  little  party 
on  the  deck  of  the  ocean  steamer,  broken 
harshly  by  the  hoarse  roar  of  the  fog-horn. 

(1883.) 


SIXTEEN  YEARS  WITHOUT   A  BIRTH- 
DAY 


SIXTEEN  YEAES  WITHOUT  A  BIRTH 
DAY 


HILE  the  journalist  deftly  dealt  with 
the  lobster  d  la  Newburg,  as  it  bub 
bled  in  the  chafing-dish  before  him, 
the  deep-toned  bell  of  the  church 
at  the  corner  began  to  strike  twelve. 

"  Give  me  your  plates,  quick,"  he  said,  "  and 

we'll  drink  Jack's  health  before  it's  to-morrow." 

The  artist  and  the  soldier  and  the  professor 

of  mathematics  did  as  they  were  told ;  and  then 

they  filled  their  glasses. 

The  journalist,  still  standing,  looked  the  sol 
dier  in  the  eye,  and  said  :  "  Jack,  this  is  the  first 
time  The  Quartet  has  met  since  the  old  school 
days,  ten  years  ago  and  more.  That  this  reun 
ion  should  take  place  on  your  birthday  doubles 
the  pleasure  of  the  occasion.  We  wish  you 
many  happy  returns  of  the  day !" 


132       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

Then  the  artist  and  the  mathematician  rose 
also,  and  they  looked  at  the  soldier,  and  re 
peated  together, "  Many  happy  returns  of  the 
day  1" 

Whereupon  they  emptied  their  glasses  and 
sat  down,  and  the  soldier  rose  to  his  feet. 

"  Thank  you,  boys,"  he  began,  "  but  I  think 
you  have  already  made  me  enjoy  this  one  birth 
day  three  times  over.  It  was  yesterday  that  I 
was  twenty-six,  and — " 

"  But  I  didn't  meet  you  till  last  night,"  in 
terrupted  the  journalist ;  "  and  yesterday  was 
Sunday ;  and  I  couldn't  get  a  box  for  the  thea 
tre  and  find  the  other  half  of  The  Quartet  all 
on  Sunday,  could  I  ?" 

"  I'm  not  complaining  because  yesterday  was 
my  real  birthday,"  the  soldier  returned,  "  even 
if  you  have  now  protracted  the  celebration  on 
to  the  third  day — it's  just  struck  midnight,  you 
know.  All  I  have  to  say  is,  that  since  you  have 
given  me  a  triplicate  birthday  this  time,  any 
future  anniversary  will  have  to  spread  itself 
over  four  days  if  it  wants  to  beat  the  record, 
that's  all."  And  he  took  his  seat  again. 

"  "Well,"  said  the  artist,  who  had  recently  re 
turned  from  Paris, "  that  won't  happen  till  we 


SIXTEEN    YEAKS    WITHOUT    A    BIETHDAY       133 

see  '  the  week  of  the  four  Thursdays,'  as  the 
French  say." 

"  And  we  sha'n't  see  that  for  a  month  of  Sun 
days,  I  guess,"  the  journalist  rejoined. 

There  was  a  moment  of  silence,  and  then  the 
mathematician  spoke  for  the  first  time. 

"  A  quadruplex  birthday  will  be  odd  enough, 
I  grant  you,"  he  began, "  but  I  don't  think  it 
quite  as  remarkable  as  the  case  of  the  lady  who 
had  no  birthday  for  sixteen  years  after  she  was 
born." 

The  soldier  and  the  artist  and  the  journalist 
all  looked  at  the  professor  of  mathematics,  and 
they  all  smiled  ;  but  his  face  remained  perfect 
ly  grave. 

"  What's  that  you  say  ?"  asked  the  journal 
ist.  "  Sixteen  years  without  a  birthday  ?  Isn't 
that  a  very  large  order  2" 

"Did  you  know  the  lady  herself?"  inquired 
the  soldier. 

"  She  was  my  grandmother,"  the  mathema 
tician  answered.  "  She  had  no  birthday  for  the 
first  sixteen  years  of  her  life." 

"  You  mean  that  she  did  not  celebrate  her 
birthdays,  I  suppose,"  the  artist  remarked. 
"That's  nothing.  I  know  lots  of  families 


134       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

Avhere  they  don't  keep  any  anniversaries 
at  all" 

"No,"  persisted  the  mathematician.  "I 
meant  what  I  said,  and  precisely  what  I  said. 
My  grandmother  did  not  keep  her  first  fifteen 
birthdays  because  she  couldn't.  She  didn't  have 
them  to  keep.  They  didn't  happen.  The  first 
time  she  had  a  chance  to  celebrate  her  birth 
day  was  when  she  completed  her  sixteenth  year 
— and  I  need  not  tell  you  that  the  family  made 
the  most  of  the  event." 

"  This  a  real  grandmother  you  are  talking 
about,"  asked  the  journalist,  "  and  not  a  fairy 
godmother  ?" 

"I  could  understand  her  going  without  a 
birthday  till  she  was  four  years  old,"  the  sol 
dier  suggested,  "if  she  was  born  on  the  29th 
of  February." 

"  That  accounts  for  four  years,"  the  mathe 
matician  admitted,  "  since  my  grandmother 
was  born  on  the  29th  of  February." 

"  In  what  year  ?"  the  soldier  pursued.  "  In 
1796?" 

The  professor  of  mathematics  nodded. 

"  Then  that  accounts  for  eight  years,"  said 
the  soldier. 


SIXTEEN    YEAES    WITHOUT    A    BIRTHDAY       135 

"I  don't  see  that  at  all,"  exclaimed  the 
artist. 

"  It's  easy  enough,"  the  soldier  explained. 
"The  year  1800  isn't  a  leap-year,  you  know. 
We  have  a  leap-year  every  four  years,  except 
the  final  year  of  a  century— 1YOO,  1800, 1900." 

"  I  didn't  know  that,"  said  the  artist. 

"  I'd  forgotten  it,"  remarked  the  journalist. 
"  But  that  gets  us  over  only  half  of  the  diffi 
culty.  He  says  his  grandmother  didn't  have  a 
birthday  till  she  was  sixteen.  We  can  all  see 
now  how  it  was  she  went  without  this  annual 
luxury  for  the  first  eight  years.  But  who 
robbed  her  of  the  birthdays  she  was  entitled 
to  when  she  was  eight  and  twelve.  That's  what 


o 


"  Born  February  29, 1796,  the  Gregorian  cal 
endar  deprives  her  of  a  birthday  in  1800,"  the 
soldier  said.  "  But  she  ought  to  have  had  her 
first  chance  February  29,  1804.  I  don't  see 
how — "  and  he  paused  in  doubt.  "  Oh !"  he 
cried,  suddenly  ;  "  where  was  she  living  in 
1804?" 

"  Most  of  the  time  in  Russia,"  the  mathema 
tician  answered.  "  Although  the  family  went 
to  England  for  a  few  days  early  in  the  year." 


136       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

"  What  was  the  date  when  they  left  Rus 
sia  ?"  asked  the  soldier,  eagerly. 

"  They  sailed  from  St.  Petersburg  in  a  Rus 
sian  bark  on  the  10th  of  February,"  answered 
the  professor  of  mathematics,  "and  owing  to 
head- winds  they  did  not  reach  England  for  a 
fortnight." 

"  Exactly,"  cried  the  soldier.  "  That's  what 
I  thought.  That  accounts  for  it." 

"  I  don't  see  how,"  the  artist  declared ;  "  that 
is,  unless  you  mean  to  suggest  that  the  Czar 
confiscated  the  little  American  girl's  birthday 
and  sent  it  to  Siberia." 

"It's  plain  enough,"  the  soldier  returned. 
"  We  have  the  reformed  calendar,  the  Grego 
rian  calendar,  you  know,  and  the  Russians 
haven't.  They  keep  the  old  Julian  calendar, 
and  it's  now  ten  days  behind  ours.  They  cele 
brate  Christmas  three  days  after  we  have  be 
gun  the  new  year.  So  if  the  little  girl  left  St. 
Petersburg  in  a  Russian  ship  on  February  10, 
1801:,  by  the  old  reckoning,  and  was  on  the  wa 
ter  two  weeks,  she  would  land  in  England  af 
ter  March  1st  by  the  new  calendar." 

"  That  is  to  say,"  the  artist  inquired, "  the  lit 
tle  girl  came  into  an  English  port  thinking  she 


SIXTEEN    YEARS    WITHOUT    A    BIRTHDAY        137 

was  going  to  have  her  birthday  the  next  week, 
and  when  she  set  foot  on  shore  she  found  out 
that  her  birthday  was  passed  the  week  before. 
Is  that  what  you  mean?" 

"  Yes,"  answered  the  soldier ;  and  the  math 
ematician  nodded  also. 

"  Then  all  I  have  to  say,"  the  artist  contin 
ued,  "  is  that  it  was  a  mean  trick  to  play  on  a 
child  that  had  been  looking  forward  to  her  first 
birthday  for  eight  years  —  to  knock  her  into 
the  middle  of  next  week  in  that  fashion !" 

"  And  she  had  to  go  four  years  more  for  her 
next  chance,"  said  the  journalist.  "  Then  she 
would  be  twelve.  Bat  you  said  she  hadn't  a 
birthday  till  she  was  sixteen.  How  did  she 
lose  the  one  she  was  entitled  to  in  1808  ?  She 
wasn't  on  a  Russian  ship  again,  was  she  ?" 

"  No,"  the  mathematician  replied  ;  "  she  was 
on  an  American  ship  that  time." 

"  On  the  North  Sea?"  asked  the  artist. 

"No,"  was  the  calm  answer;  "on  the  Pacific." 

"  Sailing  east  or  west?"  cried  the  soldier. 

"Sailing  east,"  answered  the  professor  of 
mathematics,  smiling  again. 

"  Then  I  see  how  it  might  happen,"  the  sol 
dier  declared. 


138       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

"  Well,  I  don't,"  confessed  the  artist. 

The  journalist  said  nothing,  as  it  seemed  un 
professional  to  admit  ignorance  of  anything. 

"  It  is  simple  enough,"  the  soldier  explained. 
"  You  see,  the  world  is  revolving  about  the  sun 
steadily,  and  it  is  always  high  noon  somewhere 
on  the  globe.  The  day  rolls  round  unceasing, 
and  it  is  not  cut  off  into  twenty-four  hours. 
We  happen  to  have  taken  the  day  of  Green 
wich  or  Paris  as  the  day  of  civilization,  and 
we  say  that  it  begins  earlier  in  China  and  later 
in  California;  but  it  is  all  the  same  day,  we 
say.  Therefore  there  has  to  be  some  place  out 
in  the  middle  of  the  Pacific  Ocean  where  we 
lose  or  gain  a  day — if  we  are  going  east,  we 
gain  it ;  if  we  are  going  west,  we  lose  it.  Now 
I  suppose  this  little  girl  of  twelve  was  on  her 
way  from  some  Asiatic  port  to  some  Ameri 
can  port,  and  they  stopped  on  their  voyage  at 
Honolulu.  Perhaps  they  d  ropped  anchor  there 
just  before  midnight  on  their  February  28, 
1808,  thinking  that  the  morrow  would  be  the 
29th ;  but  when  they  were  hailed  from  the 
shore,  just  after  midnight,  they  found  out  that 
it  wras  already  March  1st." 

As  the  soldier  finished,  he  looked  at  the 


SIXTEEN    YEARS    WITHOUT    A    BIRTHDAY        139 

mathematician  for  confirmation  of  his  expla 
nation. 

Thus  appealed  to,  the  professor  of  mathe 
matics  smiled  and  nodded,  and  said :  "  You 
have  hit  it.  That's  just  how  it  was  that  my 
grandmother  lost  the  birthday  she  ought  to 
have  had  when  she  was  twelve,  and  had  to  go 
four  years  more  without  one." 

"  And  so  she  really  didn't  have  a  birthday 
till  she  was  sixteen !"  the  artist  observed. 
"  Well,  all  I  can  say  is,  your  great-grandfather 
took  too  many  chances.  I  don't  think  he  gave 
the  child  a  fair  show.  I  hope  he  made  it  up 
to  her  when  she  was  sixteen — that's  all !" 

An  hour  later  The  Quartet  separated.  The 
soldier  and  the  artist  walked  away  together, 
but  the  journalist  delayed  the  mathematician. 

"  I  say,"  he  began,  "  that  yarn  about  your 
grandmother  was  very  interesting.  It  is  an 
extraordinary  combination  of  coincidences.  I 
can  see  it  in  the  Sunday  paper  with  a  scare- 
head — 

<  SIXTEEN    YEARS    WITHOUT    A    BIRTHDAY  !' 

Do  you  mind  my  using  it  ?" 

"  But  it  isn't  true,"  said  the  professor. 
"  Not  true  ?"  echoed  the  journalist. 


HO       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

"  No,"  replied  the  mathematician.  "  I  made 
it  up.  I  hadn't  done  my  share  of  the  talking, 
and  I  didn't  want  you  to  think  I  had  nothing 
to  say  for  myself." 

"Not  a  single  word  of  truth  in  it?"  the 
journalist  returned. 

"  Not  a  single  word,"  was  the  mathemati 


cian's  answer. 


"Well,  what  of  that?"  the  journalist  de 
clared.  "  I  don't  want  to  file  it  in  an  affidavit 
—I  want  to  print  it  in  a  newspaper." 

(1894.) 


THE    TWINKLING   OF   AN   EYE 


THE  TWINKLING  OF  AN  EYE 


HE  telegraph  messenger  looked 
again  at  the  address  on  the  envel 
ope  in  his  hand,  and  then  scanned 
the  house  before  which  he  was 
standing.  It  was  an  old-fashioned  building  of 
brick,  two  stories  high,  with  an  attic  above; 
and  it  ^tood  in  an  old-fashioned  part  of  lower 
New  York,  not  far  from  the  East  River.  Over 
the  wide  archway  there  was  a  small  weather 
worn  sign,  "  Ramapo  Steel  and  Iron  Works ;" 
and  over  the  smaller  door  alongside  was  a  still 
smaller  sign,  "  Whittier,  Wheatcrof t  &  Co." 

When  the  messenger-boy  had  made  out  the 
name,  he  opened  this  smaller  door  and  entered 
the  long,  narrow  store.  Its  sides  and  walls 
were  covered  with  bins  and  racks  containing 


144        TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

sample  steel  rails  and  iron  beams,  and  coils  of 
wire  of  various  sizes.  Down  at  the  end  of 
the  store  were  desks  where  several  clerks  and 
book-keepers  were  at  work. 

As  the  messenger  drew  near,  a  red-headed 
office  -  boy  blocked  the  passage,  saying,  some 
what  aggressively,  "Well?" 

"  Got  a  telegram  for  Whittier,  Wheatcroft 
&  Co.,"  the  messenger  explained,  pugnacious 
ly  thrusting  himself  forward. 

"  In  there !"  the  office-boy  returned,  jerking 
his  thumb  over  his  shoulder  towards  the  ex 
treme  end  of  the  building,  an  extension,  roofed 
with  glass  and  separated  by  a  glass  screen 
from  the  space  where  the  clerks  were  at  work. 

The  messenger  pushed  open  the  glazed  door 
of  this  private  office,  a  bell  jingled  over  his 
head,  and  the  three  occupants  of  the  room 
looked  up. 

"Whittier,  Wheatcroft  &  Co.?"  said  the 
messenger,  interrogatively,  holding  out  the 
yellow  envelope. 

"  Yes,"  responded  Mr.  Whittier,  a  tall,  hand 
some  old  gentleman,  taking  the  telegram. 
"You  sign,  Paul." 

The  youngest  of  the  three,  looking  like  his 


THE    TWINKLING    OF    AN    EYE  145 

father,  took  the  messenger's  book,  and,  glan 
cing  at  an  old-fashioned  clock  which  stood  in 
the  corner,  he  wrote  the  name  of  the  firm  and 
the  hour  of  delivery.  He  was  watching  the 
messenger  go  out.  His  attention  was  suddenly 
called  to  subjects  of  more  importance  by  a 
sharp  exclamation  from  his  father. 

"  Well,  well,  well,"  said  the  elder  Whittier 
with  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  telegram  he  had  just 
read.  "  This  is  very  strange — very  strange 
indeed !" 

"  What's  strange  ?"  asked  the  third  occupant 
of  the  office,  Mr.  Wheatcroft,  a  short,  stout, 
irascible-looking  man  with  a  shock  of  grizzly 
hair. 

For  all  answer  Mr.  Whittier  handed  to  Mr. 
Wheatcroft  the  thin  slip  of  paper. 

No  sooner  had  the  junior  partner  read  the 
paper  than  he  seemed  angrier  than  was  usual 
with  him. 

"  Strange !"  he  cried.  "  I  should  think  it  was 
strange  !  confoundedly  strange — and  deuced 
unpleasant,  too." 

"  May  I  see  what  it  is  that's  so  very  strange  ?" 
asked  Paul,  picking  up  the  despatch. 

"  Of  course  you  may  see  it,"  growled  Mr. 


10 


146        TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

Wheatcroft;   "and  let  us  see  what  you  can 
make  of  it." 

The  young  man  read  the  message  aloud : 
"  Deal  off.  Can  get  quarter  cent  better  terms. 
Carkendale." 

Then  he  read  it  again  to  himself.  At  last 
he  said,  "  I  confess  I  don't  see  anything  so  very 
mysterious  in  that.  We've  lost  a  contract,  I 
suppose ;  but  that  must  have  happened  lots  of 
times  before,  hasn't  it  ?" 

"  It's  happened  twice  before,  this  fall,"  re 
turned  Mr.  Wheatcroft,  fiercely,  "after  our  bid 
had  been  practically  accepted  and  just  before 
the  signing  of  the  final  contract !" 

"  Let  me  explain,  Wheatcroft,"  interrupted 
the  elder  Whittier,  gently.  "You  must  not 
expect  my  son  to  understand  the  ins  and  outs 
of  this  business  as  we  do.  Besides,  he  has  only 
been  in  the  office  ten  days." 

"I  don't  expect  him  to  understand,"  growled 
Wheatcroft.  "  How  could  he  ?  I  don't  under 
stand  it  myself !" 

"Close  that  door,  Paul,"  said  Mr.  Whittier. 
"  I  don't  want  any  of  the  clerks  to  know  what 
we  are  talking  about.  Here  are  the  facts  in 
the  case,  and  I  think  you  will  admit  that  they 


THE   TWINKLING    OF    AN    EYE  147 

are  certainly  curious :  Twice  this  fall,  and  now 
a  third  time,  we  have  been  the  lowest  bidders 
for  important  orders,  and  yet,  just  before  our 
bid  was  formally  accepted,  somebody  has  cut 
under  us  by  a  fraction  of  a  cent  and  got  the 
job.  First  we  thought  we  were  going  to  get 
the  building  of  the  Barataria  Central's  bridge 
over  the  Little  Makintosh  River,  but  in  the  end 
it  was  the  Tuxedo  Steel  Company  that  got 
the  contract.  Then  there  was  the  order  for 
the  fifty  thousand  miles  of  wire  for  the  Trans 
continental  Telegraph ;  we  made  an  extraor 
dinarily  low  estimate  on  that.  We  wanted 
the  contract,  and  we  threw  off,  not  only  our 
profit,  but  even  allowances  for  office  expenses ; 
and  yet  five  minutes  before  the  last  bid  had  to 
be  in,  the  Tuxedo  Company  put  in  an  offer 
only  a  hundred  and  twenty-five  dollars  less 
than  ours.  Now  comes  the  telegram  to-day. 
The  Methuselah  Life  Insurance  Company  is  go 
ing  to  put  up  a  big  building;  we  were  asked  to 
estimate  on  the  steel  framework.  We  wanted 
that  work — times  are  hard  and  there  is  little 
doing,  as  you  know,  and  we  must  get  work  for 
our  men  if  we  can.  We  meant  to  have  this 
contract  if  we  could.  We  offered  to  do  it  at 


148        TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

what  was  really  actual  cost  of  manufacture — 
without  profit,  first  of  all,  and  then  without 
any  charge  at  all  for  office  expenses,  for  in 
terest  on  capital,  for  depreciation  of  plant.  The 
vice-president  of  the  Methuselah,  the  one  who 
attends  to  all  their  real  estate,  is  Mr.  Carken- 
dale.  He  told  me  yesterday  that  our  bid  was 
very  low,  and  that  we  were  certain  to  get  the 
contract.  And  now  he  sends  me  this."  Mr. 
Whittier  picked  up  the  telegram  again. 

"  But  if  we  were  going  to  do  it  at  actual  cost 
of  manufacture,"  said  the  young  man,  "and 
somebody  else  underbids  us,  isn't  somebody 
else  losing  money  on  the  job  ?" 

"  That's  no  sort  of  satisfaction  to  our  men," 
retorted  Mr.  Wheatcroft,  cooking  himself 
before  the  fire.  "  Somebody  else  —  confound 
him ! — will  be  able  to  keep  his  men  together 
and  to  give  them  the  wages  we  want  for  our 
men.  Do  you  think  somebody  else  is  the 
Tuxedo  Company  again?" 

"  What  of  it  ?"  asked  Mr.  Whittier.  "  Surely 
you  don't  suppose— 

"  Yes,  I  do,"  interrupted  Mr.  Wheatcroft, 
swiftly.  "I  do,  indeed.  I  haven't  been  in 
this  business  thirty  years  for  nothing.  I  know 


THE    TWINKLING    OF   AN    EYE  149 

how  hungry  we  get  at  all  times  for  a  big,  fat 
contract;  and  I  know  we  would  any  of  us 
wive  a  hundred  dollars  to  the  man  who  could 

o 

tell  us  what  our  chief  rival  has  bid.  It  would 
be  the  cheapest  purchase  of  the  year,  too." 

"Come,  come,  Wheatcroft,"  said  the  elder 
Whittier;  "you  know  we've  never  done  any 
thing  of  that  sort  yet,  and  I  think  you  and 
I  are  too  old  to  be  tempted  now." 

"Nothing  of  the  sort,"  snorted  the  fiery 
little  man ;  "  I'm  open  to  temptation  this  very 
moment.  If  I  could  know  what  the  Tuxedo 
people  are  going  to  bid  on  the  new  steel  rails 
of  the  Springfield  and  Athens,  I'd  give  a  thou 
sand  dollars." 

"  If  I  understand  you,  Mr.  Wheatcroft,"  Paul 
Whittier  asked,  "  you  are  suggesting  that  there 
has  been  something  done  that  is  not  fair  ?" 

"  That's  just  what  I  mean,"  Mr.  Wheatcroft 
declared,  vehemently. 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  the  Tuxedo  peo 
ple  have  somehow  been  made  acquainted  with 
our  bids  ?"  asked  the  young  man. 

"  That's  what  I'm  thinking  now,"  was  the 
sharp  answer.  "  I  can't  think  of  anything  else. 
For  two  months  we  haven't  been  successful 


150       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

in  getting  a  single  one  of  the  big  contracts. 
We've  had  our  share  of  the  little  things,  of 
course,  but  they  don't  amount  to  much.  The 
big  things  that  we  really  wanted  have  slipped 
through  our  fingers.  We've  lost  them  by  the 
skin  of  our  teeth  every  time.  That  isn't  ac 
cident,  is  it?  Of  course  not!  Then  there's 
only  one  explanation— there's  a  leak  in  this 
office  somewhere." 

"  You  don't  suspect  any  of  the  clerks,  do 
you,  Mr.  Wheatcroft?"  asked  the  elder  Whit- 
tier,  sadly. 

"I  don't  suspect  anybody  in  particular,"  re 
turned  the  junior  partner,  brushing  his  hair 
up  the  wrong  way ;  "and  I  suspect  everybody 
in  general.  I  haven't  an  idea  who  it  is,  but 
it's  somebody!  It  must  be  somebody— and 
if  it  is  somebody,  I'll  do  my  best  to  get  that 
somebody  into  the  clutches  of  the  law." 

"  Who  makes  up  the  bids  on  these  important 
contracts  ?"  asked  Paul. 

"  Wheatcroft  and  I,"  answered  his  father. 
"  The  specifications  are  forwarded  to  the  works, 
and  the  engineers  make  their  estimates  of  the 
actual  cost  of  labor  and  material.  These  esti 
mates  are  sent  to  us  here,  and  we  add  what- 


THE    TWINKLING    OF    AN    EYE  151 

ever  we  think  best  for  interest,  and  for  ex 
penses,  for  wear  and  tear,  and  for  profit." 

"  Who  writes  the  letters  making  the  offer — 
the  one  with  actual  figures  I  mean  '?"  the  son 
continued. 

"  I  do,"  the  elder  Whittier  explained  ;  "  I 
have  always  done  it." 

"  You  don't  dictate  them  to  a  typewriter  ?" 
Paul  pursued. 

"  Certainly  not,"  the  father  responded ;  "  I 
write  them  with  my  own  hand,  and,  what's 
more,  I  take  the  press -copy  myself,  and  there 
is  a  special  letter-book  for  such  things.  This 
letter-book  is  always  kept  in  the  safe  in  this 
office ;  in  fact,  I  can  say  that  this  particular 
letter-book  never  leaves  my  hands  except  to 
go  into  that  safe.  And,  as  you  know,  nobody 
has  access  to  that  safe  except  Wheatcrof t  and 
me:" 

"  And  the  Major,"  corrected  the  junior 
partner. 

"  No,"  Mr.  Whittier  explained,  "  Van  Zandt 
has  no  need  to  go  there  now." 

"  But  he  used  to,"  Mr.  Wheatcroft  persisted. 

"  He  did  once,"  the  senior  partner  returned ; 
"  but  when  we  bought  those  new  safes  outside 


152       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

there  in  the  main  office,  there  was  no  longer 
any  need  for  the  chief  book-keeper  to  go  to 
this  smaller  safe ;  and  so,  last  month — it  was 
while  you  were  away,  Wheatcroft — Yan  Zandt 
came  in  here  one  afternoon,  and  said  that,  as 
he  never  had  occasion  to  go  to  this  safe,  he 
would  rather  not  have  the  responsibility  of 
knowing  the  combination.  I  told  him  we  had 
perfect  confidence  in  him." 

"  I  should  think  so !"  broke  in  the  explosive 
Wheatcroft.  "  The  Major  has  been  with  us 
for  thirty  years  now.  I'd  suspect  myself  of 
petty  larceny  as  soon  as  him." 

"As  I  said,"  continued  the  elder  "Whittier; 
"  I  told  him  that  we  trusted  him  perfectly,  of 
course.  But  he  urged  me,  and  to  please  him 
I  changed  the  combination  of  this  safe  that 
afternoon.  You  will  remember,  Wheatcroft, 
that  I  gave  you  the  new  word  the  day  you 
came  back." 

"  Yes,  I  remember,"  said  Mr.  Wheatcroft. 
"  But  I  don't  see  why  the  Major  did  not  want 
to  know  how  to  open  that  safe.  Perhaps  he 
is  beginning  to  feel  his  years  now.  He  must 
be  sixty,  the  Major ;  and  I've  been  thinking 
for  some  time  that  he  looks  worn." 


THE   TWINKLING    OF   AN    EYE  153 

"I  noticed  the  change  in  him,"  Paul  re 
marked,  "  the  first  day  I  came  into  the  office. 
He  seemed  ten  years  older  than  he  was  last 
winter." 

"Perhaps  his  wound  troubles  him  again," 
suggested  Mr.  Whittier.  "  Whatever  the  rea 
son,  it  is  at  his  own  request  that  he  is  now 
ignorant  of  the  combination.  No  one  knows 
that  but  Wheatcroft  and  I.  The  letters  them 
selves  I  wrote  myself,  and  copied  myself,  and 
put  them  myself  in  the  envelopes  I  directed  my 
self.  I  don't  recall  mailing  them  myself,  but  I 
may  have  done  that  too.  So  you  see  that  there 
can't  be  any  foundation  for  your  belief,  Wheat- 
croft,  that  somebody  had  access  to  our  bids." 

"  I  can't  believe  anything  else !"  cried  Wheat- 
croft,  impulsively.  "  I  don't  know  how  it  was 
done — I'm  not  a  detective — but  it  was  done 
somehow.  And  if  it  was  done,  it  was  done  by 
somebody !  And  what  I'd  like  to  do  is  to  catch 
that  somebody  in  the  act — that's  all !  I'd  make 
it  hot  for  him!" 

"  You  would  like  to  have  him  out  at  the 
llamapo  Works,"  said  Paul,  smiling  at  the  lit 
tle  man's  violence,  "and  put  him  under  the 
steam-hammer  ?" 


154        TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

"  Yes,  I  would,"  responded  Mr.  Wheatcroft. 
"I  would  indeed!  Putting  a  man  under  a 
steam-hammer  may  seem  a  cruel  punishment, 
but  I  think  it  would  cure  the  fellow  of  any 
taste  for  prying  into  our  business  in  the  fut 
ure." 

"  I  think  it  would  get  him  out  of  the  habit 
of  living,"  the  elder  Whittier  said,  as  the  tall 
clock  in  the  corner  struck  one.  "  But  don't 
let's  be  so  brutal.  Let's  go  to  lunch  and  talk 
the  matter  over  quietly.  I  don't  agree  with 
your  suspicion,  Wheatcroft,  but  there  may  be 
something  in  it." 

Five  minutes  later  Mr.  "Whittier,  Mr.  Wheat 
croft,  and  the  only  son  of  the  senior  partner 
left  the  glass-framed  private  office,  and,  walk 
ing  leisurely  through  the  long  store,  passed 
into  the  street. 

They  did  not  notice  that  the  old  book 
keeper,  Major  Yan  Zandt,  whose  high  desk  was 
so  placed  that  he  could  overlook  the  private 
office,  had  been  watching  them  ever  since  the 
messenger  had  delivered  the  despatch.  He 
could  not  read  the  telegram,  he  could  not 
hear  the  comments,  but  he  could  sec  every 
movement  and  every  gesture  and  every  ex- 


THE   TWINKLING    OF    AN    EYE  155 

pression.  He  gazed  from  one  speaker  to  the 
other  almost  as  though  he  were  able  to  follow 
the  course  of  the  discussion ;  and  when  the 
three  members  of  the  firm  walked  past  his 
desk,  he  found  himself  staring  at  them  as  if 
in  a  vain  effort  to  read  on  their  faces  the  se 
cret  of  the  course  of  action  they  had  resolved 
upon. 


II 


AFTEK  luncheon,  as  it  happened,  both  the 
senior  and  the  junior  partner  of  Whittier, 
Wheatcroft  &  Co.  had  to  attend  meetings, 
and  they  went  their  several  ways,  leaving 
Paul  to  return  to  the  office  alone. 

When  he  came  opposite  to  the  house  which 
bore  the  weather-beaten  sign  of  the  firm  he 
stood  still  for  a  moment,  and  looked  across 
with  mingled  pride  and  affection.  The  build 
ing  was  old-fashioned — so  old-fashioned,  in 
deed,  that  only  a  long -established  firm  could 
afford  to  occupy  it.  It  was  Paul  Whittier's 
great-grandfather  who  had  founded  the  Ram- 
apo  Works.  There  had  been  cast  the  cannon 
for  many  of  the  ships  of  the  little  American 
navy  that  gave  so  good  an  account  of  itself 
in  the  war  of  1812.  Again,  in  1848,  had  the 
house  of  Whittier,  Wheatcroft  &  Co.  —  the 
present  Mr.  Wheatcroft's  father  having  been 
taken  into  partnership  by  Paul's  grand  father 


THE    TWINKLING    OF    AN    EYE  157 

—been  able  to  be  of  service  to  the  government 
of  the  United  States.  All  through  the  four- 
years  that  followed  the  tiring  on  the  flag  in 
1861  the  Eamapo  Works  had  been  run  day 
and  night.  When  peace  came  at  last  and  the 
people  had  leisure  to  expand,  a  large  share  of 
the  rails  needed  by  the  new  overland  roads 
which  were  to  bind  the  East  and  West  to 
gether  in  iron  bonds  had  been  rolled  by  Whit- 
tier,  Wheatcroft  &  Co.  Of  late  years,  as  Paul 
knew,  the  old  firm  seemed  to  have  lost  some 
of  its  early  energy,  and,  having  young  and 
vigorous  competitors,  it  had  barely  held  its 
own. 

That  the  Kamapo  Works  should  once  more 
take  the  lead  was  Paul  Whittier's  solemn  pur 
pose,  and  to  this  end  he  had  been  carefully 
trained.  He  was  now  a  young  man  of  twen 
ty-five,  a  tall,  handsome  fellow,  with  a  full 
mustache  over  his  firm  mouth,  and  with  clear, 
quick  eyes  below  his  curly  brown  hair.  He 
had  spent  four  years  in  college,  carrying  off 
honors  in  mathematics,  was  popular  with  his 
classmates,  who  made  him  class  poet,  and  in 
his  senior  year  he  was  elected  president  of  the 
college  photographic  society.  He  had  gone  to 


158        TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

a  technological  institute,  where  he  had  made 
himself  master  of  the  theory  and  practice  of 
metallurgy.  After  a  year  of  travel  in  Europe, 
where  he  had  investigated  all  the  important 
steel  and  iron  works  he  could  get  into,  he  had 
come  home  to  take  a  desk  in  the  office. 

It  was  only  for  a  moment  that  he  stood  on 
the  sidewalk  opposite,  looking  at  the  old  build 
ing.  Then  he  threw  away  his  cigarette  and 
went  over.  Instead  of  entering  the  long  store 
he  walked  down  the  alleyway  left  open  for 
the  heavy  wagons.  When  he  came  opposite 
to  the  private  office  in  the  rear  of  the  store 
he  examined  the  doors  and  the  windows  care 
fully,  to  see  if  he  could  detect  any  means  of 
ingress  other  than  those  open  to  everybody. 

There  was  no  door  from  the  private  office 
into  the  alleyway  or  into  the  yard.  There 
was  a  door  from  the  alleyway  into  the  store, 
opposite  to  the  desks  of  the  clerks,  and  within 
a  few  feet  of  the  door  leading  from  the  store 
into  the  private  office. 

Paul  passed  through  this  entrance,  and 
found  himself  face  to  face  with  the  old  book 
keeper,  Van  Zandt,  who  was  following  all  his 
movements  with  a  questioning  gaze. 


THE    TWINKLING    OF    AN    EYE  159 

"  Good-afternoon,  Major,"  said  Paul,  pleas 
antly.  "  Have  you  been  out  for  your  lunch 
yet  ?" 

"  I  always  get  my  dinner  at  noon,"  the 
book-keeper  gruffly  answered,  returning  to  his 
books. 

As  Paul  walked  on  he  could  not  but  think 
that  the  Major's  manner  was  ungracious.  And 
the  voung  man  remembered  how  cheerful  the 
old  man  had  been,  and  how  courteous  always, 
when  the  son  of  the  senior  partner,  while  still 
a  school-boy,  used  to  come  to  the  office  on  Sat 
urdays. 

Paul  had  always  delighted  in  the  office,  and 
the  store,  and  the  yard  behind,  and  he  had 
spent  many  a  holiday  there,  and  Major  Van 
Zandt  had  always  been  glad  to  see  him,  and 
had  willingly  answered  his  myriad  questions. 

Paul  wondered  why  the  book-keeper's  man 
ner  was  now  so  different.  Yan  Zandt  was 
older,  but  he  was  not  so  very  old,  not  more 
than  sixty,  and  old  age  in  itself  is  not  suffi 
cient  to  make  a  man  surly  and  to  sour  his 
temper.  That  the  Major  had  had  trouble  in 
his  family  was  well  known.  II is  wife  had 
been  flighty  and  foolish,  and  it  was  believed 


160       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

that  she  had  run  away  from  him ;  and  his 
only  son  was  a  wild  lad,  who  had  been  em 
ployed  by  Whittier,  Wheatcroft  &  Co.,  out  of 
regard  for  the  father,  and  who  had  disgraced 
himself  beyond  forgiveness.  Paul  recalled 
vaguely  that  the  young  fellow  had  gone  West 
somewhere,  and  had  been  shot  in  a  mining- 
camp  after  a  drunken  brawl  in  a  gambling- 
house. 

As  Paul  entered  the  private  office  he  found 
the  porter  there,  putting  coal  on  the  fire. 

Stepping  back  to  close  the  glass  door  be 
hind  him,  that  they  might  be  alone,  he  said : 

"  Mike,  who  shuts  up  the  office  at  night  ?" 

"  Sure  I  do,  Mr.  Paul,"  was  the  prompt  re- 

Pty- 

"  And  you  open  it  in  the  morning  ?"  the 
young  man  asked. 

"  I  do  that !"  Mike  responded. 

"  Do  you  see  that  these  windows  are  always 
fastened  on  the  inside  ?"  was  the  next  query. 

"  Yes,  Mr.  Paul,"  the  porter  replied. 

"Well,"  and  the  inquirer  hesitated  briefly 
before  putting  this  question,  "  have  you  found 
any  of  these  windows  unfastened  any  morning 
lately  when  you  came  here  ?" 


THE    TWINKLING    OF    AN    EYE  161 

"  And  how  did  you  know  that  ?"  Mike  re 
turned,  in  surprise. 

"  What  morning  was  it  ?"  asked  Paul,  push 
ing  his  advantage. 

"  It  was  last  Monday  mornin',  Mr.  Paul," 
the  porter  explained,  "  an'  how  it  was  I  dunno, 
for  I  had  every  wan  of  them  windows  tight  on 
Saturday  night,  an'  Monday  mornin'  one  of 
them  was  unfastened  whin  I  wint  to  open  it  to 
let  a  bit  of  air  into  the  office  here." 

"  You  sleep  here  always,  don't  you  ?"  Paul 
proceeded. 

"  I've  slept  here  ivery  night  for  three  years 
now  come  Thanksgivin',"  Mike  replied.  "  I've 
the  whole  top  of  the  house  to  myself.  It's  an 
illigant  apartment  I  have  there,  Mr.  Paul." 

"  Who  was  here  Sunday  ?"  was  the  next 
question. 

"  Sure  nobody  was  here  at  all,"  responded 
the  porter,  "  barrin'  they  came  while  I  took 
me  a  bit  of  a  walk  after  dinner.  An'  they 
couldn't  have  got  in  anyway,  for  I  lock  up  al 
ways,  and  I  wasn't  gone  for  an  hour,  or  maybe 
an  hour  an'  a  half." 

"  I  hope  you  will  be  very  careful  hereafter," 
said  Paul. 


162  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

"  I  will  that,"  promised  Mike,  "  an'  I  am 
careful  now  always." 

The  porter  took  up  the  coal-scuttle,  and 
then  he  turned  to  Paul. 

"  How  was  it  ye  knew  that  the  winder  was 
not  fastened  that  mornin'  ?"  he  asked. 

"  How  did  I  know  ?"  repeated  the  young 
man.  "Oh,  a  little  bird  told  me." 

When  Mike  had  left  the  office  Paul  took  a 
chair  before  the  fire  and  lighted  a  cigar.  For 
half  an  hour  he  sat  silently  thinking. 

He  came  to  the  conclusion  that  Mr.  Wheat- 
croft  was  right  in  his  suspicion.  Whittier, 
Wheatcroft  &  Co.  had  lost  important  con 
tracts  because  of  underbidding,  due  to  knowl 
edge  surreptitiously  obtained.  He  believed 
that  some  one  had  got  into  the  store  on  Sun 
day  while  Mike  was  taking  a  walk,  and  that 
this  somebody  had  somehow  opened  the  safe. 
There  never  was  any  money  in  that  private 
safe;  it  was  intended  to  contain  only  impor 
tant  papers.  It  did  contain  the  letter-book  of 
the  firm's  bids,  and  this  is  what  was  wanted 
by  the  man  who  had  got  into  the  office,  and 
who  had  let  himself  in  by  the  window,  leav 
ing  it  unfastened  behind  him.  How  this  man 


THE    TWINKLING    OF    AN    EYE  163 

had  got  in,  and  why  he  did  not  get  out  by  the 
way  he  entered,  how  he  came  to  be  able  to 
open  the  private  safe,  the  combination  of 
which  was  known  only  to  the  two  partners — 
these  were  questions  for  which  Paul  Whittier 
had  no  answer. 

What  grieved  him  when  he  had  come  to  the 
conclusion  was  that  the  thief  —  for  such  the 
house-breaker  was  in  reality — was  probably 
one  of  the  men  in  the  employ  of  the  firm.  It 
seemed  to  him  almost  certain  that  the  man 
who  had  broken  in  knew  all  the  ins  and  outs 
of  the  office.  And  how  could  this  knowledge 
have  been  obtained  except  by  an  employee? 
Paul  was  well  acquainted  with  the  clerks  in 
the  outer  office.  There  were  five  of  them,  in 
cluding  the  old  book-keeper,  and  although 
none  of  them  had  been  with  the  firm  as  long 
as  the  Major,  no  one  of  them  had  been  there 
less  than  ten  years.  Paul  did  not  know  which 
one  to  suspect.  There  was,  in  fact,  no  reason 
to  suspect  any  particular  clerk.  And  yet  that 
one  of  the  five  men  in  the  main  office  on  the 
other  side  of  the  glass  partition  within  twenty 
feet  of  him — that  one  of  these  was  the  guilty 
man  Paul  did  not  doubt. 


164       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

And  therefore  it  seemed  to  him  not  so  im 
portant  to  prevent  the  thing  from  happening 
again  as  it  was  to  catch  the  man  who  had  done 
it.  The  thief  once  caught,  it  would  be  easy 
thereafter  for  the  firm  to  take  unusual  pre 
cautions.  But  the  first  thing  to  do  was  to 
catch  the  thief.  He  had  come  and  gone,  and 
left  no  trail.  But  he  must  have  visited  the 
office  at  least  three  time  in  the  past  few  weeks, 
since  the  firm  had  lost  three  important  con 
tracts.  Probably  he  had  been  there  oftener 
than  three  times.  Certainly  he  would  come 
again.  Sooner  or  later  he  would  come  once 
too  often.  All  that  needed  to  be  done  was  to 
set  a  trap  for  him. 

While  Paul  was  sitting  quietly  in  the  private 
office,  smoking  a  cigar  with  all  his  mental  fac 
ulties  at  their  highest  tension,  the  clock  in  the 
corner  suddenly  struck  three. 

Paul  swiftly  swung  around  in  his  chair  and 
looked  at  it.  An  old  eight-day  clock  it  was, 
which  not  only  told  the  time  of  the  day,  but 
pretended,  also,  to  supply  miscellaneous  astro 
nomical  information.  It  stood  by  itself  in  the 
corner. 

For  a  moment  after  it  struck  Paul  stared  at 


THE    TWINKLING    OF    AN    EYE  165 

it  with  a  fixed  gaze,  as  though  he  did  not  see 
what  he  was  looking  at.  Then  a  light  came 
into  his  eyes  and  a  smile  flitted  across  his  lips. 

He  turned  around  slowly  and  measured  with 
his  eye  the  proportions  of  the  room,  the  dis 
tance  between  the  desks  and  the  safe  and  the 
clock.  He  glanced  up  at  the  sloping  glass  roof 
above  him.  Then  he  smiled  again,  and  again 
sat  silent  for  a  minute.  He  rose  to  his  feet 
and  stood  with  his  back  to  the  fire.  Almost  in 
front  of  him  was  the  clock  in  the  corner. 

He  took  out  his  watch  and  compared  its 
time  with  that  of  the  clock.  Apparently  he 
found  that  the  clock  was  too  fast,  for  he  walk 
ed  over  to  it  and  turned  the  minute-hand 
back.  It  seemed  that  this  was  a  more  difficult 
feat  than  he  supposed  or  that  he  went  about 
it  carelessly,  for  the  minute-hand  broke  off 
short  in  his  fingers.  A  spasmodic  movement 
of  his,  as  the  thin  metal  snapped,  pulled  the 
chain  off  its  cylinder,  and  the  weight  fell  with 
a  crash. 

All  the  clerks  looked  up ;  and  the  red 
headed  office-boy  was  prompt  in  answer  to 
the  bell  Paul  rang  a  moment  after. 

"  Bobby,"  said  the  young  man  to  the  boy, 


166  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

as  he  took  his  hat  and  overcoat,  "I've  just 
broken  the  clock.  I  know  a  shop  where  they 
make  a  specialty  of  repairing  timepieces  like 
that.  I'm  going  to  tell  them  to  send  for  it  at 
once.  Give  it  to  the  man  who  will  come  this 
afternoon  with  my  card.  Do  you  understand  ?" 

"  Cert,"  the  boy  answered.  "  If  he  'ain't  got 
your  card,  he  don't  get  the  clock." 

"  That's  what  I  mean,"  Paul  responded,  as 
he  left  the  office. 

Before  he  reached  the  door  he  met  Mr. 
Wheatcroft. 

"  Paul,"  cried  the  junior  partner,  explosively, 
"  I've  been  thinking  about  that — about  that — 
you  know  what  I  mean !  And  I  have  decided 
that  we  had  better  put  a  detective  on  this 
thing  at  once !" 

"  Yes,"  said  Paul,  "  that's  a  good  idea.  In 
fact,  I  had  just  come  to  the  same  conclusion. 
I—" 

Then  he  checked  himself.  He  had  turned 
round  slightly  to  speak  to  Mr.  Wheatcroft; 
he  saw  that  Major  Van  Zandt  was  standing 
within  ten  feet  of  them,  and  he  noticed  that 
the  old  book-keeper's  face  was  strangely  pale. 


Ill 


DURING  the  next  week  the  office  of  Whit- 
tier,  "Wheatcroft  &  Co.  had  its  usual  aspect 
of  prosperous  placidity.  The  routine  work 
was  done  in  the  routine  way ;  the  porter 
opened  the  office  every  morning,  and  the  office- 
boy  arrived  a  few  minutes  after  it  was  opened ; 
the  clerks  came  at  nine,  and  a  little  later  the 
partners  were  to  be  seen  in  the  inner  office 
reading  the  morning's  correspondence. 

The  "Whittiers,  father  and  son,  had  had  a 
discussion  with  Mr.  Wheatcroft  as  to  the  most 
advisable  course  to  adopt  to  prevent  the  fut 
ure  leakage  of  the  trade  secrets  of  the  firm. 
The  senior  partner  had  succeeded  in  dissuad 
ing  the  junior  partner  from  the  employment 
of  detectives. 

"  Not  yet,"  he  said,  "  not  yet.  These  clerks 
have  all  served  us  faithfully  for  years,  and  I 
don't  want  to  submit  them  to  the  indignity  of 
being  shadowed — that's  what  they  call  it,  isn't 


168  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND   FACT 

it?— of  being  shadowed  by  some  cheap  hire 
ling  who  may  try  to  distort  the  most  inno 
cent  acts  into  evidence  of  guilt,  so  that  he  can 
show  us  how  smart  he  is." 

"  But  this  sort  of  thing  can't  go  on  forever," 
ejaculated  Mr.  Wheatcroft.  "  If  we  are  to  be 
underbid  on  every  contract  worth  having,  we 
might  as  w^ell  go  out  of  the  business !" 

"  That's  true,  of  course,"  Mr.  Whittier  ad 
mitted  ;  "  but  we  are  not  sure  that  we  are 
being  underbid  unfairly." 

"  The  Tuxedo  Company  have  taken  away 
three  contracts  from  us  in  the  past  two 
months,"  cried  the  junior  partner ;  "  we  can 
be  sure  of  that,  can't  we  ?" 

"  We  have  lost  three  contracts,  of  course," 
returned  Mr.  "Whittier,  in  his  most  conciliatory 
manner,  "  and  the  Tuxedo  people  have  capt 
ured  them.  But  that  may  be  only  a  coinci 
dence,  after  all." 

"  It  is  a  pretty  expensive  coincidence  for 
us,"  snorted  Mr.  Wheatcroft. 

"  But  because  we  have  lost  money,"  the  sen 
ior  partner  rejoined  gently,  laying  his  hand 
on  Mr.  Wheatcroft's  arm,  "  that's  no  reason 
why  we  should  also  lose  our  heads.  It  is  no 


THE   TWINKLING    OF   AN    EYE  169 

reason  why  we  should  depart  from  our  old 
custom  of  treating  every  man  fairly.  If  there 
is  any  one  in  our  employ  here  who  is  selling 
us,  why,  if  we  give  him  rope  enough  he  will 
hang  himself,  sooner  or  later." 

"And  before  he  suspends  himself  that  way," 
cried  Mr.  Wheatcroft,  "  we  may  be  forced  to 
suspend  ourselves." 

"  Come,  come,  Wheatcroft,"  said  the  senior 
partner,  "  I  think  we  can  afford  to  stand  the 
loss  a  little  longer.  What  we  can't  afford  to 
do  is  to  lose  our  self-respect  by  doing  some 
thing  irreparable.  It  may  be  that  we  shall 
have  to  employ  detectives,  but  I  don't  think 
the  time  has  come  yet." 

"Very  well,"  the  junior  partner  declared, 
yielding  an  unwilling  consent.  "  I  don't  in 
sist  on  it.  I  still  think  it  would  be  best  not 
to  waste  any  more  time — but  I  don't  insist. 
What  will  happen  is  that  we  shall  lose  the 
rolling  of  those  steel  rails  for  the  Springfield 
and  Athens  road — that's  all." 

Paul  Whittier  had  taken  no  part  in  this  dis 
cussion.  He  agreed  with  his  father,  and  saw 
he  had  no  need  to  urge  any  further  argument. 

Presently  he  asked  when  they  intended  to 


170       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

put  in  the  bid  for  the  rails.  His  father  then 
explained  that  they  were  expecting  a  special 
estimate  from  the  engineers  at  the  Ramapo 
Works,  and  that  it  probably  would  be  Satur 
day  before  this  could  be  discussed  by  the  part 
ners  and  the  exact  figures  of  the  proposed  con 
tract  determined. 

"  And  if  we  don't  want  to  lose  that  contract 
for  sure,"  insisted  Mr.  Wheatcroft,  "  I  think 
we  had  better  change  the  combination  on  that 
safe." 

"  May  I  suggest,"  said  Paul,  "  that  it  seems 
to  me  to  be  better  to  leave  the  combination 
as  it  is.  What  we  want  to  do  is  not  to  get 
this  Springfield  and  Athens  contract  so  much 
as  to  find  out  whether  some  one  really  is  get 
ting  at  the  letter-book.  Therefore  we  mustn't 
make  it  any  harder  for  the  some  one  to  get  at 
the  letter-book." 

"  Oh,  very  well,"  Mr.  Wheatcroft  assented,  a 
little  ungraciously,  "have  it  your  own  way. 
But  I  want  you  to  understand  now  that  I 
think  you  are  only  postponing  the  inevitable!" 

And  with  that  the  subject  was  dropped. 
For  several  days  the  three  men  who  were 
together  for  hours  in  the  office  of  the  Ramapo 


THE   TWINKLING    OF   AN    EYE  171 

Iron  and  Steel  Works  refrained  from  any  dis 
cussion  of  the  question  which  was  most  prom 
inent  in  their  minds. 

It  was  on  Wednesday  that  the  tall  clock 
that  Paul  Whittier  had  broken  returned  from 
the  repairer's.  Paul  himself  helped  the  men 
to  set  it  in  its  old  place  in  the  corner  of  the 
office,  facing  the  safe,  which  occupied  the  cor 
ner  diagonally  opposite. 

It  so  chanced  that  Paul  came  down  late  on 
Thursday  morning,  and  perhaps  this  was  the 
reason  that  a  pressure  of  delayed  work  kept 
him  in  the  office  that  evening  long  after  ev 
ery  one  else.  The  clerks  had  all  gone,  even 
Major  Van  Zandt,  always  the  last  to  leave — 
and  the  porter  had  come  in  twice  before  the 
son  of  the  senior  partner  was  ready  to  go  for 
the  night.  The  gas  was  lighted  here  and 
there  in  the  long,  narrow,  deserted  store,  as 
Paul  walked  through  it  from  the  office  to  the 
street.  Opposite,  the  swift  twilight  of  a  New 
York  November  had  already  settled  down  on 
the  city. 

"  Can't  I  carry  yer  bag  for  }Te,  Mister  Paul?" 
asked  the  porter,  who  was  showing  him  out. 

"No,   thank  you,   Mike,"    was  the  young 


172       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

man's  answer.  "That  bag  has  very  little  in 
it.  And,  besides,  I  haven't  got  to  carry  it  far." 

The  next  morning  Paul  was  the  first  of  the 
three  to  arrive.  The  clerks  were  in  their  places 
already,  but  neither  the  senior  nor  the  junior 
partner  had  yet  come.  The  porter  happened 
to  be  standing  under  the  wa.gon  archway  as 
Paul  Whittier  was  about  to  enter  the  store. 

The  young  man  saw  the  porter,  and  a  mis 
chievous  smile  hovered  about  the  corners  of 
his  mouth. 

"  Mike,"  he  said,  pausing  on  the  door-step, 
"  do  you  think  you  ought  to  smoke  while  you 
are  cleaning  out  our  office  in  the  morning?" 

"  Sure,  I  haven't  had  me  pipe  in  me  mouth 
this  mornin'  at  all,"  the  porter  answered,  taken 
by  surprise. 

"  But  yesterday  morning  ?"  Paul  pursued. 

"  Yesterday  mornin' !"  Mike  echoed,  not  a 
little  puzzled. 

"  Yesterday  morning  at  ten  minutes  before 
eight  you  were  in  the  private  office  smoking  a 
pipe." 

"  But  how  did  you  see  me,  Mr.  Paul  ?"  cried 
Mike,  in  amaze.  "  Ye  was  late  in  comin'  down 
yesterday,  wasn't  ye  ?" 


THE    TWINKLING    OF    AN    EYE  173 

Paul  smiled  pleasantly. 

"  A  little  bird  told  me,"  he  said. 

"  If  I  had  the  bird  I'd  ring  his  neck  for  tell- 
in'  tales,"  the  porter  remarked. 

"I  don't  mind  your  smoking,  Mike,"  the 
young  man  went  on,  "  that's  your  own  affair ; 
but  I'd  rather  you  didn't  smoke  a  pipe  while 
you  are  tidying  up  the  private  office." 

"  Well,  Mister  Paul,  I  won't  do  it  again," 
the  porter  promised. 

"And  I  wouldn't  encourage  Bob  to  smoke, 
either,"  Paul  continued. 

u  I  encourage  him  ?"  inquired  Mike. 

"  Yes,"  Paul  explained  ;  "  yesterday  morn 
ing  you  let  him  light  his  cigarette  from  your 
pipe — didn't  you?" 

"  Were  you  peekin'  in  thro'  the  winder.  Mis 
ter  Paul?"  the  porter  asked,  eagerly.  "Ye 
saw  me,  an'  I  never  saw  ye  at  all." 

"JSTo,"  the  young  man  answered,  "  I  can't  say 
that  I  saw  you  myself.  A  little  bird  told  me." 

And  with  that  he  left  the  wondering  porter 
and  entered  the  store.  Just  inside  the  door 
was  the  office-boy,  who  hastily  hid  an  nn- 
lighted  cigarette  as  he  caught  sight  of  the 
senior  partner's  son. 


174  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

When  Paul  saw  the  red-headed  boy  he  smiled 
again,  mischievously. 

"  Bob,"  he  began,  "  when  you  want  to  see 
who  can  stand  on  his  head  the  longest,  you  or 
Danny  the  boot-black,  don't  you  think  you 
could  choose  a  better  place  than  the  private 
office?" 

The  office-boy  was  quite  as  much  taken  by 
surprise  as  the  porter  had  been,  but  he  was 
younger  and  quicker- witted. 

"  And  when  did  I  have  Danny  in  the  office?" 
he  asked,  defiantly. 

"  Yesterday  morning,"  Paul  answered,  still 
smiling,  "a  little  before  half-past  eight." 

"  Yesterday  mornin'  ?"  repeated  Bob,  as 
though  trying  hard  to  recall  all  the  events 
of  the  day  before.  "  Maybe  Danny  did  come 
in  for  a  minute." 

"He  played  leap-frog  with  you  all  the  way 
into  the  private  office,"  Paul  went  on,  while 
Bob  looked  at  him  with  increasing  wonder. 

"  How  did  you  know?"  the  office-boy  asked, 
frankly.  "  Were  you  lookin'  through  the  win 
dow  ?" 

"  How  do  I  know  that  you  and  Danny  stood 
on  your  heads  in  the  corner  of  the  office  with 


THE    TWINKLING    OF    AN    EYE  175 

your  heels  against  the  safe,  scratching  off  the 
paint  ?  Next  time  I'd  try  the  yard,  if  I  were 
you.  Sports  of  that  sort  are  more  fun  in  the 
open  air." 

And  with  that  parting  shot  Paul  went  on 
his  way  to  his  own  desk,  leaving  the  office-boy 
greatly  puzzled. 

Later  in  the  day  Bob  and  Mike  exchanged 
confidences,  and  neither  was  ready  with  an 
explanation. 

"At  school,"  Bob  declared,  "we  used  to 
think  teacher  had  eyes  in  the  back  of  her  head. 
She  was  everlastingly  catch  in'  me  when  I  did 
things  behind  her  back.  But  Mr.  Paul  beats 
that,  for  he  see  me  doin'  things  when  he  wasn't 
here." 

"  Mister  Paul  wasn't  here,  for  sure,  yester 
day  mornin',"  Mike  asserted ;  "  I'd  take  me 
oath  o'  that.  An'  if  he  wasn't  here,  how  could 
he  see  me  givin'  ye  a  light  from  me  pipe  ? 
Answer  me  that !  He  says  it's  a  little  bird 
told  him ;  but  that's  not  it,  I'm  thinkin'.  Not 
but  that  they  have  clocks  with  birds  into  'em, 
that  come  out  and  tell  the  time  o'  day, 
'  Cuckoo !  Cuckoo !  Cuckoo !'  An'  if  that  big 
clock  he  broke  last  week  had  a  bird  in  it  that 


176  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

could  tell  time  that  way,  I'd  break  the  thing 
quick — so  I  would." 

"  It  ain't  no  bird,"  said  Bob.  "  You  can  bet 
your  life  on  that.  No  birds  can't  tell  him 
nothin'  no  more'n  you  can  catch  'em  by  putting 
salt  on  their  tails.  I  know  what  it  is  Mr.  Paul 
does — least,  I  know  how  he  does  it.  It's  second- 
sight,  that's  what  it  is !  I  see  a  man  onct  at 
the  theayter,  an'  he — " 

But  perhaps  it  is  not  necessary  to  set  down 
here  the  office-boy's  recollection  of  the  trick 
of  an  ingenious  magician. 

About  half  an  hour  after  Paul  had  arrived 
at  the  office  Mr.  Wheatcroft  appeared.  The 
junior  partner  hesitated  in  the  doorway  for  a 
second,  and  then  entered. 

Paul  was  watching  him,  and  the  same  mis 
chievous  smile  flashed  over  the  face  of  the 
young  man. 

"  You  need  not  be  alarmed  to-day,  Mr. 
Wheatcroft,"  he  said.  "There  is  no  fascinat 
ing  female  waiting  for  you  this  morning." 

"  Confound  the  woman !"  ejaculated  Mr. 
Wheatcroft,  testily.  "  I  couldn't  get  rid  of  her." 

"  But  you  subscribed  for  the  book  at  last," 
asserted  Paul,  "  and  she  went  away  happy." 


THE   TWINKLING    OF    AN    EYE  177 

"1  believe  I  did  agree  to  take  one  copy 
of  the  work  she  showed  me,"  admitted  Mr. 
Wheatcroft,  a  little  sheepishly.  Then  he 
looked  up  suddenly.  "  Why,  bless  my  soul," 
he  cried,  "  that  was  yesterday  morning — 

"  Allowing  for  differences  of  clocks,"  Paul 
returned,  "  it  was  about  ten  minutes  to  ten 
yesterday  morning." 

"  Then  how  do  you  come  to  know  anything 
about  it?  I  should  like  to  be  told  that !"  the 
junior  partner  inquired.  "You  did  not  get 
down  till  nearly  twelve." 

"  I  had  an  eye  on  you,"  Paul  answered,  as 
the  smile  again  flitted  across  his  face. 

"  But  I  thought  you  were  detained  all  the 
morning  by  a  sick  friend,"  insisted  Mr.  Wheat 
croft. 

"  So  I  was,"  Paul  responded.  "  And  if  you 
won't  believe  I  had  an  eye  on  you,  all  I  can 
say  then  is  that  a  little  bird  told  me." 

"  Stuff  and  nonsense !"  cried  Mr.  Wheatcroft. 
"  Your  little  bird  has  two  legs,  hasn't  it  ?" 

"  Most  birds  have,"  laughed  Paul. 

"  I  mean  two  legs  in  a  pair  of  trousers,"  ex 
plained  the  junior  partner,  rumpling  his  griz 
zled  hair  with  an  impatient  gesture. 

lfl 


178       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

"  You  see  how  uncomfortable  it  is  to  be 
shadowed,"  said  Paul,  turning  the  topic  as 
his  father  entered  the  office. 

That  Saturday  afternoon  Mr.  Whittier  and 
Mr.  Wheatcroft  agreed  on  the  bid  to  be  made 
on  the  steel  rails  needed  by  the  Springfield 
and  Athens  road.  While  the  elder  Mr.  Whittier 
wrote  the  letter  to  the  railroad  with  his  own 
hand,  his  son  manoeuvred  the  junior  partner 
into  the  outer  office,  where  all  the  clerks  hap 
pened  to  be  at  work,  including  the  old  book 
keeper.  Then  Paul  managed  his  conversation 
with  Mr.  Wheatcroft  so  that  any  one  of  the 
five  employees  who  chose  to  listen  to  the  ap 
parently  careless  talk  should  know  that  the 
firm  had  just  made  a  bid  on  another  important 
contract.  Paul  also  spoke  as  though  his  father 
and  himself  would  probably  go  out  of  town 
that  Saturday  night,  to  remain  away  till  Mon 
day  morning. 

And  just  before  the  store  was  closed  for  the 
night,  Paul  Whittier  wound  up  the  eight-day 
clock  that  stood  in  the  corner  opposite  the 
private  safe. 


IV 


ALTHOUGH  the  Whittiers,  father  and  son, 
spent  Sunday  out  of  town,  Paul  made  an  ex 
cuse  to  the  friends  whom  they  were  visiting, 
and  returned  to  the  city  by  a  midnight  train. 
Thus  he  was  enabled  to  present  himself  at 
the  office  of  the  Ramapo  Works  very  early  on 
Monday  morning. 

It  was  so  early,  indeed,  that  no  one  of  the 
employees  had  arrived  when  the  son  of  the 
senior  partner,  bag  in  hand,  pushed  open  the 
street  door  and  entered  the  long  store,  at  the 
far  end  of  which  the  porter  was  still  tidying 
up  for  the  day's  work. 

"An'  is  that  you,  Mister  Paul?"  Mike 
asked  in  surprise,  as  he  came  out  of  the  pri 
vate  office  to  see  who  the  early  visitor  might 
be.  "An5  what  brought  ye  out  o'  your  bed 
before  breakfast  like  this  f ' 

"  I  always  get  out  of  bed  before  breakfast," 
Paul  replied.  "  Don't  you  f ' 


180       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

"  Would  I  get  up  if  I  hadn't  got  to  get  up 
to  get  my  livin'  ?"  the  porter  replied. 

Paul  entered  the  office,  followed  by  Mike, 
still  wondering  why  the  young  man  was  there 
at  that  hour. 

After  a  swift  glance  round  the  office  Paul 
put  down  his  bag  on  the  table  and  turned 
suddenly  to  the  porter  with  a  question. 

"  When  does  Bob  get  down  here  ?" 

Mike  looked  at  the  clock  in  the  corner  be 
fore  answering. 

"  It  '11  be  ten  minutes,"  he  said,  "  or  maybe 
twenty,  before  the  boy  does  be  here  to-dav, 
seein'  it's  Monday  mornin',  an'  he'll  be  tired 
with  not  workin'  of  Sunday." 

"  Ten  minutes,"  repeated  Paul,  slowly.  After 
a  moment's  thought  he  continued,  "  Then  I'll 
have  to  ask  you  to  go  out  for  me,  Mike." 

"  I  can  go  anywhere  ye  want,  Mister  Paul," 
the  porter  responded. 

"  I  want  you  to  go—"  began  Paul,  "  I  want 
you  to  go — "  and  he  hesitated,  as  though  he 
was  not  quite  sure  what  it  was  he  wished  the 
porter  to  do,  "  I  want  you  to  go  to  the  office 
of  the  Gotham  Gazette  and  get  me  two  copies 
of  yesterday's  paper.  Do  you  understand  ?" 


THE    TWINKLING    OF    AN    EYE  181 

"  Maybe  they  won't  be  open  so  early  in  the 
mornin',"  said  the  Irishman. 

"  That's  no  matter,"  said  Paul,  hastily  cor 
recting  himself ;  "  I  mean  that  I  want  you  to 
go  there  now  and  get  the  papers  if  you  can. 
Of  course,  if  the  office  isn't  open  I  shall  have 
to  send  again  later." 

"  I'll  be  goin'  now,  Mister  Paul,"  and  Mike 
took  his  hat  from  a  chair  and  started  off  at 
once. 

Paul  walked  through  the  store  Avith  the 
porter.  When  Mike  had  gone  the  young  man 
locked  the  front  door  and  returned  at  once 
to  the  private  office  in  the  rear.  He  shut  him 
self  in,  and  lowered  all  the  shades  so  that 
whatever  he  might  do  inside  could  not  be  seen 
by  any  one  on  the  outside. 

Whatever  it  was  he  wished  to  do  he  wTas 
able  to  do  it  swiftly,  for  in  less  than  a  minute 
after  he  had  closed  the  door  of  the  office  he 
opened  it  again  and  came  out  into  the  main 
store  with  his  bag  in  his  hand.  He  walked 
leisurely  to  the  front  of  the  store,  arriving  just 
in  time  to  unlock  the  door  as  the  office-boy 
came  around  the  corner  smoking  a  cigarette. 

When  Bob,  still  puffing  steadily,  was  about 


182  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

to  open  the  door  and  enter  the  store  he  looked 
up  and  discovered  that  Paul  was  gazing  at 
him.  The  boy  pinched  the  cigarette  out  of  his 
mouth  and  dropped  it  outside,  and  then  came 
in,  his  eyes  expressing  his  surprise  at  the  pres 
ence  of  the  senior  partner's  son  down-town  at 
that  early  hour  in  the  morning. 

Paul  greeted  the  boy  pleasantly,  but  Bob 
got  away  from  him  as  soon  as  possible.  Ever 
since  the  young  man  had  told  what  had  gone 
on  in  the  office  when  Bob  was  its  only  oc 
cupant,  the  office-boy  was  a  little  afraid  of  the 
young  man,  as  though  somewhat  mysterious, 
not  to  say  uncanny. 

Paul  thought  it  best  to  wrait  for  the  porter's 
return,  and  he  stood  outside  under  the  archway 
for  five  minutes,  smoking  a  cigar,  with  his  bag 
at  his  feet. 

When  Mike  came  back  with  the  two  copies 
of  the  Sunday  newspaper  he  had  been  sent  to 
get,  Paul  gave  him  the  money  for  them  and 
an  extra  quarter  for  himself.  Then  the  young 
man  picked  up  his  bag  again. 

"  When  my  father  comes  down,  Mike,"  he 
said,  "  tell  him  I  may  be  a  little  late  in  get 
ting  back  this  morning." 


THE    TWINKLING    OF    AN    EYE  183 

"  An'  are  ye  goin'  away  now,  Mister  Paul  ?" 
the  porter  asked.  "  What  good  was  it  that  ye 
got  out  o'  bed  before  breakfast  and  come  down 
here  so  early  in  the  raornin'  ?" 

Paul  laughed  a  little.  "  I  had  a  reason  for 
coming  here  this  morning,"  he  answered,  brief 
ly  ;  and  with  that  he  walked  away,  his  bag  in 
one  hand  and  the  two  bulky,  gaudy  papers  in 
the  other. 

Mike  watched  him  turn  the  corner,  and  then 
went  into  the  store  again,  where  Bob  greeted 
him  promptly  with  the  query  why  the  old 
man's  son  had  been  getting  up  by  the  bright 
light. 

"  If  I  was  the  boss,  or  the  boss's  son  either," 
said  Bob,  "  I  wouldn't  get  up  till  I  was  good 
and  ready.  I'd  have  my  breakfast  in  bed  if  I 
had  a  mind  to,  an'  my  dinner  too,  an'  my  supper. 
An'  I  wouldn't  do  no  work,  an'  I'd  go  to  the 
theayter  every  night,  and  twice  on  Saturdays." 

"  I  dunno  why  Mister  Paul  was  down," 
Mike  explained.  "  All  he  wanted  was  two  o' 
thim  Sunday  papers  with  pictures  in  thim. 
What  did  he  want  two  o'  thim  for  I  dunno. 
There's  reading  enough  in  one  o'  thim  to  last 
me  a  month  of  Sundays." 


184       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

It  may  be  surmised  that  Mike  would  have 
been  still  more  in  the  dark  as  to  Paul  Whit- 
tier's  reasons  for  coming  down-town  so  ear 
ly  that  Monday  morning  if  he  could  have 
seen  the  young  man  throw  the  copies  of  the 
Gotham  Gazette  into  the  first  ash -cart  he 
passed  after  he  was  out  of  range  of  the  por 
ter's  vision. 

Paul  was  not  the  only  member  of  Whittier, 
Wheatcroft  &  Co.  to  arrive  at  the  office  early 
that  morning.  Mr.  Wheatcroft  was  usually 
punctual,  taking  his  seat  at  his  desk  just  as 
the  clock  struck  half-past  nine.  On  this  Mon 
day  morning  he  entered  the  store  a  little  be 
fore  nine. 

As  he  walked  back  to  the  office  he  looked 
over  at  the  desks  of  the  clerks  as  though  he 
was  seeking  some  one. 

At  the  door  of  the  office  he  met  Bob. 

"  Hasn't  the  Major  come  down  yet  ?"  he 
asked,  shortly. 

"  No,  sir,"  the  boy  answered.  "  He  don't 
never  get  here  till  nine." 

"  H'm,"  grunted  the  junior  partner.  "  When 
he  does  come,  tell  him  I  want  to  see  him  at 
once — at  once,  do  vou  understand  ?" 


THE    TWINKLING    OF    AN    EYE  185 

"  I  ain't  deaf  and  dumb  and  blind,"  Bob  re 
sponded.  "  I'll  steer  him  into  you  as  soon  as 
ever  he  shows  up." 

But,  for  a  wonder,  the  old  book-keeper  was 
late  that  morning.  Ordinarily  he  was  a  model 
of  exactitude.  Yet  the  clock  struck  nine,  and 
half-past,  and  ten  before  he  appeared  in  the 
store. 

Before  he  changed  his  coat  Bob  was  at  his 
side. 

"  Mr.  Wheatcroft  he  wants  to  see  you  now 
in  a  hurry,"  said  the  boy. 

Major  Van  Zandt  paled  swiftly,  and  stead 
ied  himself  by  a  grasp  of  the  railing. 

"  Does  Mr.  Wheatcroft  wish  to  see  me  ?"  he 
asked,  faintly. 

"  You  bet  he  does,"  the  boy  answered,  "  an' 
in  a  hurry,  too.  He  came  bright  an'  early 
this  morning  a-purpose  to  see  you,  an'  he's 
been  a-waiting  for  two  hours.  An'  I  guess 
he's  got  his  mad  up  now." 

"When  the  old  book-keeper  with  his  blanched 
face  and  his  faltering  step  entered  the  private 
office  Mr.  Wheatcroft  wheeled  around  in  his 
chair. 

"  Oh,  it's  you,  is  it  ?"  he  cried.    "  At  last !" 


186       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

«  I  regret  that  I  was  late  this  morning,  Mr. 
Wheatcroft,"  Van  Zandt  began. 

"  That's  no  matter,"  said  the  employer ; — 
"at  least,  I  want  to  talk  about  something 
else." 

"About  something  else?"  echoed  the  old 
man,  feebly. 

"  Yes,"  responded  Mr.  Wheatcroft.  "  Shut 
the  door  behind  you,  please,  so  that  that  red 
headed  cub  out  there  can't  hear  what  I  am  go 
ing  to  say,  and  take  a  chair.  Yes ;  there  is 
something  else  I've  got  to  say  to  you,  and  I 
want  you  to  be  frank  with  me." 

Whatever  it  was  that  Mr.  Wheatcroft  had 
to  say  to  Major  Yan  Zandt  it  had  to  be  said 
under  the  eyes  of  the  clerks  on  the  other  side 
of  the  glass  partition.  And  it  took  a  long 
time  saying,  for  it  was  evident  to  any  observ 
er  of  the  two  men  as  they  sat  in  the  private 
office  that  Mr.  Wheatcroft  was  trying  to  force 
an  explanation  of  some  kind  from  the  old 
book-keeper,  and  that  the  Major  was  resisting 
his  employer's  entreaties  as  best  he  could. 
Apparently  the  matter  under  discussion  was 
of  an  importance  so  grave  as  to  make  Mr. 
Wheatcroft  resolutely  retain  his  self-control; 


THE    TWINKLING    OF    AN    EYE  187 

and  not  .once  did  he  let  his  voice  break  out 
explosively,  as  was  his  custom. 

Major  Yan  Zandt  was  still  closeted  with 
Wheatcroft  when  Mr.  "Whittier  arrived.  The 
senior  partner  stopped  near  the  street  door  to 
speak  to  a  clerk,  and  he  was  joined  almost 
immediately  by  his  son. 

"  Well,  Paul,"  said  the  father,  "  have  I  got 
down  here  before  you  after  all,  and  in  spite 
of  your  running  away  last  night  ?" 

"No,"  the  son  responded,  "I  was  the  first 
to  arrive  this  morning — luckily." 

"Luckily?"  echoed  his  father.  "I  suppose 
that  means  that  you  have  been  able  to  accom 
plish  your  purpose — whatever  it  was.  You 
didn't  tell  me,  you  know." 

"  I'm  ready  to  tell  you  now,  father,"  said 
Paul,  "  since  I  have  succeeded." 

Walking  down  the  store  together,  they 
came  to  the  private  office. 

As  the  old  book-keeper  saw  them  he  started 
up,  and  made  as  if  to  leave  the  office. 

"  Keep  your  seat,  Major,"  cried  Mr.  Wheat- 
croft,  sternly,  but  not  unkindly.  "  Keep  your 
seat,  please." 

Then  he  turned  to  Mr.  Whittier.     "  I  have 


188  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

something  to  tell  you  both,"  he  said,  "and  I 
want  the  Major  here  while  I  tell  you.  Paul, 
may  I  trouble  you  to  see  that  the  door  is 
closed  so  that  we  are  out  of  hearino-  ?" 

o 

"  Certainly,"  Paul  responded,  as  he  closed 
the  door. 

"Well,  Wheatcroft,"  Mr.  Whittier  said, 
"  what  is  all  this  mystery  of  yours  now  ?" 

The  junior  partner  swung  around  in  his 
chair  and  faced  Mr.  Whittier. 

"  My  mystery  ?"  he  cried.  "  It's  the  mys 
tery  that  puzzled  us  all,  and  I've  solved 
it." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  asked  the  senior 
partner. 

"  What  I  mean  is,  that  somebody  has  been 
opening  that  safe  there  in  the  corner,  and 
reading  our  private  letter-book,  and  finding 
out  what  we  were  bidding  on  important  con 
tracts.  What  I  mean  is,  that  this  man  has 
taken  this  information,  filched  from  us,  and 
sold  it  to  our  competitors,  who  were  not  too 
scrupulous  to  buy  stolen  goods  !" 

"  We  all  suspected  this,  as  you  know,"  the 
elder  Whittier  said  ;  "  have  you  any  thing  new 
to  add  to  it  now  ?" 


THE    TWINKLING    OF    AN    EYE  189 

"Haven't  I?"  returned  Mr.  Wheatcroft. 
"  I've  found  the  man  !  That's  all !" 

"  You,  too  r  ejaculated  Paul. 

"  Who  is  he  ?"  asked  the  senior  partner. 

"  Wait  a  minute,"  Mr.  Wheatcroft  begged. 
"  Don't  be  in  a  hurry  and  I'll  tell  you.  Yes- 
terda}7'  afternoon,  I  don't  know  what  possessed 
me,  but  I  felt  drawn  down -town  for  some 
reason.  I  wanted  to  see  if  anything  was 
going  on  down  here.  I  knew  we  had  made 
that  bid  Saturday,  and  I  wondered  if  anybody 
would  try  to  get  it  on  Sunday.  So  I  came 
down  about  four  o'clock,  and  I  saAv  a  man 
sneak  out  of  the  front  door  of  this  office.  I 
followed  him  as  swiftly  as  I  could  and  as 
quietly,  for  I  didn't  want  to  give  the  alarm 
until  I  knew  more.  The  man  did  not  see  me 
as  he  turned  to  go  up  the  steps  of  the  elevated 
railroad  station.  At  the  corner  I  saw  his  face." 

"  Did  you  recognize  him  ?"  asked  Mr.  Whit- 
tier. 

"  Yes,"  was  the  answer.  "  And  he  did  not 
see  me.  There  were  tears  rolling  down  his 
cheeks,  perhaps  that's  the  reason.  This  morn 
ing  I  called  him  in  here,  and  he  has  finally 
confessed  the  whole  thing." 


190       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 


—  who  is  it?"  asked  Mr.  Whittier, 
dreading  to  look  at  the  old  book-keeper,  who 
had  been  in  the  employ  of  the  firm  for  thirty 
years  and  more. 

"It  is  Major  Van  Zandt!"  Mr.  Wheatcroft 
declared. 

There  was  a  moment  of  silence;  then  the 
voice  of  Paul  Whittier  was  heard,  saying,  "  I 
think  there  is  some  mistake  !" 

"A  mistake!"  cried  Mr.  Wheatcroft.  "What 
kind  of  a  mistake  ?" 

"  A  mistake  as  to  the  guilty  man,"  respond 
ed  Paul. 

"  Do  you  mean  that  the  Major  isn't  guilty  ?" 
asked  Mr.  Wheatcroft. 

"  That's  what  I  mean,"  Paul  returned. 

"But  he  has  confessed,"  Mr.  Wheatcroft 
retorted. 

"  I  can't  help  that,"  was  the  response.  "  He 
isn't  the  man  who  opened  that  safe  yesterday 
afternoon  at  half-past  three  and  took  out  the 
letter-book." 

The  old  book-keeper  looked  at  the  young 
man  in  frightened  amazement. 

"  I  have  confessed  it,"  he  said,  piteously  — 
"  I  have  confessed  it." 


THE    TWINKLING    OF   AN    EYE  191 

"  I  know  you  have,  Major,"  Paul  declared, 
not  unkindly.  "And  I  don't  know  why  you 
have,  for  you  were  not  the  man." 

"  And  if  the  man  who  confesses  is  not  the 
man  who  did  it,  who  is  ?"  asked  Wheatcroft, 
sarcastically. 

"  I  don't  know  who  is,  although  I  have  my 
suspicions,"  said  Paul ;  "  but  I  have  his  photo 
graph — taken  in  the  act !" 


WHEN  Paul  Whittier  said  he  had  a  photo 
graph  of  the  mysterious  enemy  of  the  Eama- 
po  Steel  and  Iron  Works  in  the  very  act  of 
opening  the  safe,  Mr.  Whittier  and  Mr.  Wheat- 
croft  looked  at  each  other  in  amazement.  Major 
Yan  Zandt  stared  at  the  young  man  with  fear 
and  shame  struggling  together  in  his  face. 

Without  waiting  to  enjoy  his  triumph,  Paul 
put  his  hand  in  his  pocket  and  took  out  two 
squares  of  bluish  paper. 

"  There,'-  he  said,  as  he  handed  one  to  his 
father,  "  there  is  a  blue  print  of  the  man  taken 
in  this  office  at  ten  minutes  past  three  yester 
day  afternoon,  just  as  he  was  about  to  open 
the  safe  in  the  corner.  You  see  he  is  kneeling 
with  his  hand  on  the  lock,  but  apparently  just 
then  something  alarmed  him  and  he  cast  a 
hasty  glance  over  his  shoulder.  At  that  sec 
ond  the  photograph  was  taken,  and  so  we 
have  a  full-face  portrait  of  the  man." 


THE    TWINKLING    OF    AN    EYE  193 

Mr.  Whittier  had  looked  at  the  photograph, 
and  he  now  passed  it  to  the  impatient  hand  of 
the  junior  partner. 

"  You  see,  Mr.  Wheatcroft,"  Paul  continued, 
"  that  although  the  face  in  the  photograph 
bears  a  certain  family  likeness  to  Major  Yan 
Zandt's,  all  the  same  that  is  not  a  portrait  of 
the  Major.  The  man  who  was  here  yesterday 
was  a  young  man,  a  man  young  enough  to  be 
the  Major's  son !" 

The  old  book-keeper  looked  at  the  speaker. 

"  Mr.  Paul,"  he  began,  "  you  won't  be  hard 
on  the — "  then  he  paused  abruptly. 

"  I  confess  I  don't  understand  this  at  all !" 
declared  Mr.  Wheatcroft,  irascibly. 

"  I  am  afraid  that  I  do  understand  it,"  Mr. 
Whittier  said,  with  a  glance  of  compassion  at 
the  Major. 

"  There,"  Paul  continued,  handing  his  father 
a  second  azure  square,  "  there  is  a  photograph 
taken  here  ten  minutes  after  the  first,  at  3.20 
yesterday  afternoon.  That  shows  the  safe 
open  and  the  young  man  standing  before  it 
with  the  private  letter-book  in  his  hand.  As 
his  head  is  bent  over  the  pages  of  the  book, 
the  view  of  the  face  is  not  so  good.  But  there 

13 


194  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

can  be  no  doubt  that  it  is  the  same  man.  You 
see  that,  don't  you,  Mr.  "Wheatcrof t  ?" 

"  I  see  that,  of  course,"  returned  Mr.  Wheat- 
croft,  forcibly.  "  What  I  don't  see  is  why  the 
Major  here  should  confess  if  he  isn't  guilty !" 

"  I  think  I  know  the  reason  for  that,"  said 
Mr.  Whittier,  gently. 

"  There  haven't  been  two  men  at  our  books, 
have  there?"  asked  Mr.  Wheatcrof  t— "  the 
Major,  and  also  the  fellow  who  has  been  pho 
tographed  ?" 

Mr.  Whittier  looked  at  the  bookkeeper  for 
a  moment. 

"Major,"  he  said,  with  compassion  in  his 
voice,  "you  won't  tell  me  that  it  was  you  who 
sold  our  secrets  to  our  rivals  ?  And  you  might 
confess  it  again  and  again,  1  should  never 
believe  it.  I  know  you  better.  I  have  known 
you  too  long  to  believe  any  charge  against 
your  honest}?,  even  if  you  bring  it  yourself. 
The  real  culprit,  the  man  who  is  photographed 
here,  is  your  son,  isn't  he  ?  There  is  no  use  in 
your  trying  to  conceal  the  truth  now,  and 
there  is  no  need  to  attempt  it,  because  we 
shall  be  lenient  with  him  for  your  sake, 
Major." 


THE    TWINKLING    OF   AN    EYE  195 

There  was  a  moment's  silence,  broken  by 
Wheatcroft  suddenly  saying : 

"  The  Major's  son  ?  Why,  he's  dead,  isn't 
he?  He  was  shot  in  a  brawl  after  a  spree 
somewhere  out  West  two  or  three  years  ago 
— at  least,  that's  what  I  understood  at  the 
time." 

"It  is  what  I  wanted  everybody  to  under 
stand  at  the  time,"  said  the  book-keeper,  break 
ing  silence  at  last.  "  But  it  wasn't  so.  The 
boy  was  shot,  but  he  wasn't  killed.  I  hoped 
that  it  would  be  a  warning  to  him,  and  he 
would  make  a  fresh  start.  Friends  of  mine  got 
him  a  place  in  Mexico,  but  luck  was  against 
him — so  he  wrote  me — and  he  lost  that.  Then 
an  old  comrade  of  mine  gave  him  another 
chance  out  in  Denver,  and  for  a  while  he  kept 
straight  and  did  his  work  well.  Then  he 
broke  down  once  more  and  he  was  discharged. 
For  six  months  I  did  not  know  what  had  be 
come  of  him.  I've  found  out  since  that  he 
was  a  tramp  for  weeks,  and  that  he  walked 
most  of  the  way  from  Colorado  to  New  York. 
This  fall  he  turned  up  in  the  city,  ragged, 
worn  out,  sick.  I  wanted  to  order  him  away, 
but  I  couldn't.  I  took  him  back  and  got  him 


196        TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

decent  clothes  and  took  him  to  look  for  a 
place,  for  I  knew  that  hard  work  was  the  only 
thing  that  would  keep  him  out  of  mischief. 
He  did  not  find  a  place,  perhaps  he  did  not 
look  for  one.  But  all  at  once  I  discovered 
that  he  had  money.  He  would  not  tell  me 
how  he  got  it.  I  knew  he  could  not  have 
come  by  it  honestly,  and  so  I  watched  him. 
I  spied  after  him,  and  at  last  I  found  that  he 
was  selling  you  to  the  Tuxedo  Company." 

"  But  how  could  he  open  the  safe  ?"  cried 
Mr.  Wheatcroft.  "  You  didn't  know  the  new 
combination." 

"I  did  not  tell  him  the  combination  I  did 
know,"  said  the  old  book-keeper,  with  pathetic 
dignity.  u  And  I  didn't  have  to  tell  him.  He 
can  open  almost  any  safe  without  knowing  the 
combination.  How  he  does  it,  I  don't  know  ; 
it  is  his  gift.  He  listens  to  the  wheels  as  they 
turn,  and  he  sets  first  one  and  then  the  other; 
and  in  ten  minutes  the  safe  is  open." 

"  How  could  he  get  into  the  store  ?"  Mr. 
Whittier  inquired. 

"  He  knew  I  had  a  key,"  responded  the  old 
book-keeper,  "and  he  stole  it  from  me.  He 
used  to  watch  on  Sunday  afternoons  till  Mike 


THE    TWINKLING    OF   AN    EYE  197 

went  for  a  walk,  and  then  he  unlocked  the 
store,  and  slipped  in  and  opened  the  safe.  Two 
weeks  ago  Mike  came  back  unexpectedly,  and 
he  had  just  time  to  get  out  of  one  of  the  rear 
windows  of  this  office." 

"  Yes,"  Paul  remarked,  as  the  Major  paused, 
"  Mike  told  me  that  he  found  a  window  un 
fastened." 

"  I  heard  you  asking  about  it,"  Major  Van 
Zandt  explained, "  and  I  knew  that  if  you  were 
suspicious  he  was  sure  to  be  caught  sooner  or 
later.  So  I  begged  him  not  to  try  to  injure 
you  again.  I  offered  him  money  to  go  away. 
But  he  refused  my  money ;  he  said  he  could 
get  it  for  himself  now,  and  I  might  keep  mine 
until  he  needed  it.  He  gave  me  the  slip  yes 
terday  afternoon.  When  I  found  he  was  gone 
I  came  here  straight.  The  front  door  was  un 
locked  ;  I  walked  in  and  found  him  just  closing 
the  safe  here.  I  talked  to  him,  and  he  refused 
to  listen  to  me.  I  tried  to  get  him  to  give  up 
his  idea,  and  he  struck  me.  Then  I  left  him, 
and  I  went  out,  seeing  no  one  as  I  hurried  home. 
That's  when  Mr.  Wheatcroft  followed  me,  I 
suppose.  The  boy  never  came  back  all  night. 
I  haven't  seen  him  since ;  I  don't  know  where 


198       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

he  is,  but  he  is  my  son,  after  all — my  only  son! 
And  when  Mr.  Wheatcroft  accused  me,  I  con 
fessed  at  last,  thinking  you  might  be  easier  on 
me  than  you  would  be  on  the  boy." 

"My  poor  friend,"  said  Mr.  Whittier,  sym 
pathetically,  holding  out  his  hand,  which  the 
Major  clasped  gratefully  for  a  moment. 

"  Now  that  we  know  who  was  selling  us  to 
the  Tuxedo  people,  we  can  protect  ourselves 
hereafter,"  declared  Mr.  Wheatcroft.  "  And 
in  spite  of  your  trying  to  humbug  me  into  be 
lieving  you  guilty,  Major,  I'm  willing  to  let 
your  son  off  easy." 

"  I  think  I  can  get  him  a  place  where  he  will 
be  out  of  temptation,  because  he  will  be  kept 
hard  at  work  always,"  said  Paul. 

The  old  book-keeper  looked  up  as  though 
about  to  thank  the  young  man,  but  there 
seemed  to  be  a  lump  in  his  throat  which  pre 
vented  him  from  speaking. 

Suddenly  Mr.  Wheatcroft  began,  explosively, 
"  That's  all  very  well !  but  what  I  still  don't  un 
derstand  is  how  Paul  got  those  photographs  !" 

Mr.  Whittier  looked  at  his  son  and  smiled. 
"That  is  a  little  mysterious,  Paul,"  he  said, 
"  and  I  confess  I'd  like  to  know  how  you  did  it." 


THE    TWINKLING    OF    AN    EYE  199 

"  Were  you  concealed  here  yourself  ?"  asked 
Mr.  Wheatcroft. 

"  No,"  Paul  answered.  "  If  you  will  look 
round  this  room  you  will  see  that  there  isn't 
a  dark  corner  in  which  anybody  could  tuck 
himself." 

"  Then  where  was  the  photographer  hid 
den  ?"  Mr.  Wheatcroft  inquired,  with  increas 
ing  curiosity. 

"  In  the  clock,"  responded  Paul. 

"In  the  clock?"  echoed  Mr.  Wheatcroft, 
greatly  amazed.  "  Why,  there  isn't  room  in 
the  case  of  that  clock  for  a  thin  midget,  let 
alone  a  man !" 

Paul  enjoyed  puzzling  his  father's  partner. 
"  I  didn't  say  I  had  a  man  there  or  a  midget 
either,"  he  explained.  "  I  said  that  the  pho 
tographer  was  in  the  clock — and  I  might  have 
said  that  the  clock  itself  was  the  photographer." 

Mr.  Wheatcroft  threw  up  his  hands  in  dis 
gust.  "  Well,"  he  cried,  "  if  you  want  to  go  on 
mystifying  us  in  this  absurd  way,  go  on  as  long 
as  you  like!  But  your  father  and  I  are  en 
titled  to  some  consideration,  I  think." 

"  I'm  not  mystifying  you  at  all ;  the  clock 
took  the  pictures  automatically.  I'll  show  you 


200  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

how,"  Paul  returned,  getting  up  from  bis  chair 
and  going  to  the  corner  of  the  office. 

Taking  a  key  from  his  pocket  he  opened 
the  case  of  the  clock  and  revealed  a  small 
photographic  apparatus  inside,  with  the  tube 
of  the  objective  opposite  the  round  glass  panel 
in  the  door  of  the  case.  At  the  bottom  of  the 
case  was  a  small  electrical  batter}7,  and  on  a 
small  shelf  over  this  was  an  electro-magnet. 

"  I  begin  to  see  how  you  did  it,"  Mr.  Whit- 
tier  remarked.  "  I  am  not  an  expert  in  pho 
tography,  Paul,  and  I'd  like  a  full  explanation. 
And  make  it  as  simple  as  you  can." 

"  It's  a  very  simple  thing  indeed,"  said  the 
son.  "  One  day  while  I  was  wondering  how 
we  could  best  catch  the  man  who  was  getting 
at  the  books,  that  clock  happened  to  strike, 
and  somehow  it  reminded  me  that  in  our  photo 
graphic  society  at  college  we  had  once  sug 
gested  that  it  would  be  amusing  to  attach  a 
detective  camera  to  a  timepiece  and  take  snap 
shots  every  few  minutes  all  through  the  day. 
I  saw  that  this  clock  of  ours  faced  the  safe,  and 
that  it  couldn't  be  better  placed  for  the  pur 
pose.  So  when  I  had  thought  out  my  plan,  I 
came  over  here  and  pretended  that  the  clock 


THE    TWINKLING    OF    AN    EYE  201 

was  wrong,  and  in  setting  it  right  I  broke  off 
the  minute-hand.  Then  I  had  a  man  I  know 
send  for  it  for  repairs ;  he  is  both  an  electrician 
and  an  expert  photographer.  Together  we 
worked  out  this  device.  Here  is  a  small  snap 
shot  camera  loaded  with  a  hundred  and  fifty 
films ;  and  here  is  the  electrical  attachment 
which  connects  with  the  clock  so  as  to  take  a 
photograph  every  ten  minutes  from  eight  in 
the  morning  to  six  at  night.  We  arranged 
that  the  magnet  should  turn  the  spool  of  film 
after  every  snap-shot." 

"Well!"  cried  Mr.  Wheatcroft.  "I  don't 
know  much  about  these  things,  but  I  read  the 
papers,  and  I  suppose  you  mean  that  the  clock 
'pressed  the  button,'  and  the  electricity  pulled 
the  string." 

"  That's  it  precisely,"  the  young  man  re 
sponded.  "  Of  course  I  wasn't  quite  sure  how 
it  would  work,  so  I  thought  I  would  try  it 
first  on  a  week-day  when  we  were  all  here. 
It  did  work  all  right,  and  I  made  several  inter 
esting  discoveries.  I  found  that  Mike  smoked 
a  pipe  in  this  office  —  and  that  Bob  played 
leap-frog  in  the  store  and  stood  on  his  head  in 
the  corner  there  up  against  the  safe !" 


202  TALES    OF    FANTASY    AND    FACT 

"  The  confounded  young  rascal !"  interrupted 
Mr.  Wheatcroft. 

Paul  smiled  as  he  continued.  "  I  found  also 
that  Mr.  Wheatcroft  was  captivated  by  a 
pretty  book-agent  and  bought  two  bulky  vol 
umes  he  didn't  want." 

Mr.  Wheatcroft  looked  sheepish  for  a  mo 
ment. 

"  Oh,  that's  how  you  knew,  is  it?"  he  growled, 
running  his  hands  impatiently  through  his 
shock  of  hair. 

"  That's  how  I  knew,"  Paul  replied.  "  I  told 
you  I  had  an  eye  on  you.  It  was  the  lone  eye 
of  the  camera.  And  on  Sunday  it  kept  watch 
for  us  here,  winking  every  ten  minutes.  From 
eight  o'clock  in  the  morning  to  three  in  the 
afternoon  it  winked  forty -two  times,  and  all  it 
saw  was  the  same  scene,  the  empty  corner  of  the 
room  here,  with  the  safe  in  the  shadow  at  first 
and  at  last  in  the  full  light  that  poured  down 
from  the  glass  roof  over  us.  But  a  little  after 
three  a  man  came  into  the  office  and  made 
ready  to  open  the  safe.  At  ten  minutes  past 
three  the  clock  and  the  camera  took  his  photo 
graph — in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye.  At  twenty 
minutes  past  three  a  second  record  was  made. 


THE    TWINKLING   OF   AN    EYE  203 

Before  half -past  three  the  man  was  gone,  and 
the  camera  winked  every  ten  minutes  until 
six  o'clock  quite  in  vain.  I  came  down  early 
this  morning  and  got  the  roll  of  negatives. 
One  after  another  I  developed  them,  dis 
appointed  that  I  had  almost  counted  fifty 
of  them  without  reward.  But  the  forty- 
third  and  the  forty-fourth  paid  for  all  my 
trouble." 

Mr.  Whittier  gave  his  son  a  look  of  pride. 
"  That  was  very  ingeniously  worked  out,  Paul ; 
very  ingeniously  indeed,"  he  said.  "  If  it  had 
not  been  for  your  clock  here  I  might  have 
found  it  difficult  to  prove  that  the  Major  was 
innocent — especially  since  he  declared  himself 
guilty." 

Mr.  Wheatcroft  rose  to  his  feet,  to  close  the 
conversation. 

"  I'm  glad  we  know  the  truth,  anyhow,"  he 
asserted,  emphatically.  And  then,  as  though 
to  relieve  the  strain  on  the  old  book-keeper,  he 
added,  with  a  loud  laugh  at  his  own  joke, 
"  That  clock  had  its  hands  before  its  face  all 
the  time — but  it  kept  its  eyes  open  for  all 
that !" 

"  Don't  forget  that  it  had  only  one  eye," 


204       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

said  "Whittier,  joining  in  the  laugh;  "it  had 
an  eye  single  to  its  duty." 

"  You  know  the  Frencli  saying,  father," 
added  Paul,  "  <  In  the  realm  of  the  blind  the 
one-eyed  man  is  king.'  " 

(1895.) 


A   CONFIDENTIAL   POSTSCRIPT 


A  CONFIDENTIAL    POSTSCRIPT 


T  was  pithily  said  by  one  of  old 
that  a  bore  is  a  man  who  insists 
upon  talking  about  himself  when 
you  want  to  talk  about  yourself. 
There  is  some  truth  in  the  saying,  no  doubt ; 
but  surely  it  should  not  apply  to  the  relation 
of  an  author  to  his  readers.  So  long,  at  least, 
as  they  are  holding  his  book  in  their  hands, 
it  is  a  fair  inference  that  they  do  not  wish 
to  talk  about  themselves  just  that  moment ; 
indeed,  it  is  not  a  violent  hypothesis  to  sug 
gest  that  perhaps  they  are  then  willing  enough 
to  have  him  talk  about  himself.  For  the  ego 
tistic  garrulity  of  the  author  there  is,  in  fact, 
no  more  fit  occasion  than  in  the  final  pages  of 
his  book.  At  that  stage  of  the  game  he  may 
fairly  enough  count  on  the  good  humor  of  his 
readers,  since  those  who  might  be  dissatisfied 


208  TALES    OF    FANTASY   AND    FACT 

with  him  would  all  have  yielded  to  discourage 
ment  long  before  the  postscript  was  reached. 

The  customary  preface  is  not  so  pleasant  a 
place  for  a  confidential  chat  as  the  unconven 
tional  postscript.  The  real  value  and  the  true 
purpose  of  the  preface  is  to  serve  as  a  tele 
phone  for  the  writer  of  the  book  and  to  bear 
his  message  to  the  professional  book-review 
ers.  On  the  other  hand,  only  truly  devoted 
readers  will  track  the  author  to  his  lair  in  a 
distant  postscript.  While  it  might  be  pre 
sumptions  for  him  to  talk  about  himself  before 
the  unknown  and  anonymous  book-reviewers, 
he  cannot  but  be  rejoiced  at  the  chance  of  a 
gossip  with  his  old  friends,  the  gentle  readers. 

Perhaps  the  present  author  cannot  drop  into 
conversation  more  easily  than  by  here  ventur 
ing  upon  the  expression  of  a  purely  personal 
feeling — his  own  enjoyment  in  the  weaving  of 
the  unsubstantial  webs  of  improbable  adven 
ture  that  fill  the  preceding  pages.  "With  an 
ironic  satisfaction  was  it  that  a  writer  who  is 
not  unaccustomed  to  be  called  a  mere  realist 
here  attempted  fantasy,  even  though  the  re 
sults  of  his  effort  may  reveal  invention  only 
and  not  imagination.  It  may  even  be  that  it 


A    CONFIDENTIAL    POSTSCEIPT  209 

was  memory  (mother  of  the  muses)  rather 
than  invention  (daughter  of  necessity)  which  in 
spired  the  *  Primer  of  Imaginary  Geography.' 
I  have  an  uneasy  wonder  whether  I  should 
ever  have  gone  on  this  voyage  of  discovery 
with  Mynheer  Vanderdecken,  past  the  Bohe 
mia  which  is  a  desert  country  by  the  sea,  if  I 
had  not  in  my  youth  been  allowed  to  visit 
'  A  Virtuoso's  Collection ' ;  and  yet,  to  the 
best  of  my  recollection,  it  was  no  recalling  of 
Hawthorne's  tale,  but  a  casual  glance  at  the 
Carte  du  Pays  de  Tendre  in  a  volume  of 
Moliere,  which  first  set  me  upon  collecting  the 
material  for  an  imaginary  geography. 

In  the  second  of  these  little  fantasies  the 
midnight  wanderer  saw  certain  combats  fa 
mous  in  all  literature  and  certain  dances. 
Where  it  was  possible  use  was  made  of  the 
actual  words  of  the  great  authors  who  had  de 
scribed  these  combats  and  these  dances,  the 
descriptions  being  condensed  sometimes  and 
sometimes  their  rhythm  being  a  little  modified 
so  that  they  should  not  be  out  of  keeping  with 
the  more  pedestrian  prose  by  which  they  were 
accompanied.  Thus,  as  it  happens,  the  dances 
of  little  Pearl  and  of  Topsy  could  be  set  forth, 

14 


210       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

fortunately,  almost  in  the  very  phrases  of 
Hawthorne  and  of  Mrs.  Stowe,  while  I  was 
forced  to  describe  as  best  I  could  myself  the 
gyrations  of  the  wife  who  lived  in  '  A  Doll's 
House '  and  of  her  remote  predecessor  as  a 
"  new  woman,"  the  daughter  of  Herodias. 
The  same  method  was  followed  in  the  writing 
of  the  third  of  these  tales,  although  the  au 
thors  then  drawn  upon  were  most  of  them  less 
well  known  ;  and  the  only  quotation  of  any 
length  was  the  one  from  Irving  describing  the 
mysterious  deeds  of  the  headless  horseman. 

Now  it  chanced  that  the  *  Dream-Gown  of 
the  Japanese  Ambassador,'  instead  of  appear 
ing  complete  in  one  number  of  a  magazine,  as 
the  two  earlier  tales  had  done,  was  published 
in  various  daily  newspapers  in  three  instal 
ments.  In  the  first  of  these  divisions  the  re 
turned  traveller  fell  asleep  and  saw  himself  in 
the  crystal  ball ;  in  the  second  he  went  through 
the  rest  of  his  borrowed  adventures  ;  and  in 
the  third  his  friend  awakened  him  and  un 
ravelled  the  mystery.  When  the  second  part 
appeared  a  clergyman  who  had  read  the 
4  Sketch -Book'  (even  though  he  had  never 
heard  of  the  'Forty -Seven  Ronins,'  or  the 


A    CONFIDENTIAL    POSTSCRIPT  211 

'  Shah-Nameh,'  or  the  '  Custom  of  the  Coun 
try  ')  took  his  pen  and  sat  down  and  wrote 
swiftly  to  a  newspaper,  declaring  that  this  in 
stalment  of  my  tale  had  been  "  cribbed  bod 
ily,  and  almost  verbatim  et  literatim,  in  one- 
third  of  its  entire  length,  from  the  familiar 
£  Legend  of  Sleepy  Hollow.'  "  He  asked  sar 
castically  if  the  copyright  notice  printed  at 
the  head  of  my  story  was  meant  to  apply  also 
to  the  passages  plagiarized  from  Irving.  He 
declared  also  that  "  it  is  unfortunate  for  liter 
ary  persons  of  the  stamp  of  the  author  of 
6  Vignettes  of  Manhattan '  that  there  still  ex 
ist  readers  who  do  not  forget  what  they  have 
read  that  is  worth  remembering.  Such  read 
ers  are  not  to  be  imposed  on  by  the  most  skil 
ful  bunglers  (sic)  who  endeavor  to  pass  off  as 
their  own  the  work  of  greater  men." 

The    writer   of    this   letter   had   given  his 

address,  Christ  Church  Eectory, ,  K  J. 

(I  suppress  the  name  of  the  village  for  the  sake 
of  his  parishioners  as  I  suppress  the  name  of 
the  man  for  the  sake  of  his  family).  There 
fore  I  wrote  to  him  at  once,  telling  him  that  if 
he  had  read  the  third  and  final  instalment  of 
my  story  with  the  same  attention  he  had  given 


212       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

to  the  second  part  he  would  understand  why 
I  was  expecting  to  receive  from  him  an  apol 
ogy  for  the  letter  he  had  sent  to  the  newspa 
per.  In  time  there  reached  me  this  inadequate 
and  disingenuous  response,  hardly  worthy  to  be 
called  even  an  apology  for  an  apology : 

"  In  reply  to  your  courteous  communication,  let  me  say 
that  had  I  seen  the  close  of  your  short  story,  I  should 
have  grasped  the  situation  more  fully,  and  should  doubt 
less  have  refrained  from  giving  it  any  special  attention. 

"When  one  considers,  however,  the  manner  in  which 
your  copy  was  published  by  the  paper,  deferring  the  ex 
planation  until  the  appearance  of  the  third  instalment,  it 
must  be  acknowledged  that  there  was  opportunity  for 
surprise  and  criticism.  The  fault  should  have  been  found 
with  the  way  in  which  the  article  was  published,  rather 
than  with  the  story  itself,  that  appearing  at  its  conclusion 
a  self-confessed  mosaic  of  quotations.  Needless  to  add 
that  its  author's  aim  to  amuse,  entertain,  and  instruct 
has  been  manifestly  subserved. 

"Yours  most  sincerely, 


Of  another  tale  ('  Sixteen  Years  without  a 
Birthday')  I  have  nothing  to  say  — except  to 
record  a  friend's  remark  after  he  had  finished 
it,  that  he  had  "  read  something  very  like  it 
not  long  before  in  a  newspaper ;"  so  perhaps 


A    CONFIDENTIAL    POSTSCRIPT  213 

I  may  be  permitted  to  declare  that  I  had  not 
read  something  very  like  it  anywhere,  but  had, 
to  the  best  of  my  belief,  "  made  it  all  up  out 
of  my  own  head."  Nor  need  I  say  anything 
about  the  'Rival Ghosts' — except  to  note  that 
it  is  here  reprinted  from  an  earlier  collection 
of  stories  which  has  now  for  years  been  out  of 
print. 

The  last  tale  of  all,  the  '  Twinkling  of  an 
Eye,'  received  the  second  prize  for  the  best 
detective  story,  offered  by  a  newspaper  syn 
dicate — the  first  prize  being  taken  by  a  story 
written  by  Miss  Mary  E.  Wilkins  and  Mr.  J.  E. 
Chamberlain.  The  use  of  the  camera  as  a 
detective  agency  had  been  suggested  to  me  by 
a  brief  newspaper  paragraph  glanced  at  casual 
ly  several  }rears  before.  And  I  confess  that  it 
was  with  not  a  little  amusement  that  I  em 
ployed  this  device,  since  I  had  then  recently 
seen  my  'Vignettes  of  Manhattan'  criticized  as 
being  "  photographic  in  method."  Here  again 
I  had  no  reason  to  doubt  the  originality  of  my 
plot;  and  here  once  more  was  my  confidence 
shattered,  and  I  was  forced  to  confess  that 
fiction  can  never  hope  to  keep  ahead  of  fact. 

After  the  'Twinkling  of  an  Eye'  was  pub- 


214       TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

Jished  in  the  newspapers  which  had  joined  in 
offering  the  prizes,  it  was  printed  again  in  one 
of  the  smaller  magazines.  There  it  was  read 
by  a  gentleman  connected  with  a  hardware 
house  in  Grand  Rapids,  who  wrote  to  me,  in 
forming  me  that  the  story  I  had  laboriously 
pieced  together  had — in  some  of  its  details, 
at  least — been  anticipated  by  real  life  more 
than  a  year  before  I  sat  down  to  write  out  my 
narrative.  This  gentleman  has  now  kindly 
given  me  permission  to  quote  from  his  letter 
those  passages  which  may  be  of  interest  to 
readers  of  the  '  Twinkling  of  an  Eye': 

It  appears  that  the  cash-drawer  of  the  hard 
ware  store,  in  which  small  change  was  habit 
ually  left  over  night  for  use  in  the  morning  be 
fore  the  banks  open,  was  robbed  three  nights 
running,  although  only  a  few  dollars  were  taken 
at  a  time.  "  The  large  vault,  in  which  are  kept 
the  firm's  papers,  had  not  been  tampered  with, 
and  the  work  was  evidently  that  of  some  petty 
thief.  The  night-watchman  was  a  trusted  em 
ployee,  and  my  father  did  not  wish  to  accuse 
him  unjustly.  And,  besides,  he  did  not  wish 
to  warn  the  thief.  So  nothing  was  said  to  the 
watchman.  The  nights  on  which  the  till  had 


A    CONFIDENTIAL    POSTSCRIPT  215 

been  tapped  were  Thursday,  Friday,  and  Satur 
day.  Father  goes  down  to  the  store  every  Sun 
day  morning  for  about  half  an  hour  to  open  the 
mail,  and  it  was  then  that  he  discovered  the 
Saturday  night  theft.  Directly  after  Sunday 
dinner,  father  went  down  to  see  an  electrical 
friend  of  his,  who  executed  a  plan  which  my 
father  had  devised.  The  cash-drawer  was  sit 
uated  in  one  corner  of  the  office  (quite  a  large 
one),  in  which  both  the  wholesale  and  retail 
business  is  transacted.  He  placed  a  large  de 
tective  camera  in  the  corner  opposite  the  till, 
and  beside  it,  and  a  little  behind,  a  quantity 
of  flash-light  powder  in  a  receptacle.  This 
powder  was  connected  by  electric  wires  with 
the  till  in  such  a  manner  that  when  the  drawer 
was  opened  the  circuit  would  be  completed 
and  the  powder  ignited.  Everything  worked 
to  perfection.  The  office  is  always  left  dark 
at  night,  so  the  shutter  of  the  camera  could  be 
left  open  without  spoiling  the  film.  The  cam 
era  was  in  place  Sunday  evening,  but  the  thief 
stayed  away.  It  was  set  again  on  Monday 
night,  and  that  time  we  got  him.  A  small 
wire  was  attached  to  a  weight  near  the  cam 
era  extending  to  the  till.  As  the  thief  started 


216        TALES  OF  FANTASY  AND  FACT 

to  open  the  drawer  the  weight  made  a  slight 
noise.  He  glanced  in  the  direction  of  the 
noise,  started,  pulled  the  weight  a  little  far 
ther,  and  we  had  his  picture.  Detectives  had 
already  been  working  on  the  case,  and  the 
thief  was  identified  and  arrested  on  the 
strength  of  the  portrait.  When  he  was  in 
formed  that  we  had  his  picture,  he  made  a  full 
confession.  He  said  that  when  the  flash-light 
went  off  he  nearly  fainted  from  fright." 

After  this  experience  I  am  tempted  to  give 
up  all  hope  that  I  can  ever  invent  anything 
which  is  not  a  fact,  even  before  I  make  it  up. 
I  am  now  prepared,  therefore,  to  discover  that 
I  did  really  have  an  interview  with  Count 
Cagliostro,  and  also  that  I  was  actually  an 
unwilling  witness  at  the  wedding  of  the  rival 
ghosts. 

(1896.) 


THE    END 


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